World Health Assembly

On World Malaria Day, a push to eliminate malaria

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GENEVA – A year after the World Health Assembly resolved to eliminate malaria from at least 35 countries by 2030, WHO is releasing a World Malaria Day report that shows this goal, although ambitious, is achievable.

In 2015, all countries in the WHO European Region reported, for the first time, zero indigenous cases of malaria, down from 90 000 cases in 1995. Outside this region, 8 countries reported zero cases of the disease in 2014: Argentina, Costa Rica, Iraq, Morocco, Oman, Paraguay, Sri Lanka and United Arab Emirates.

Another 8 countries each tallied fewer than 100 indigenous malaria cases in 2014. And a further 12 countries reported between 100 and 1000 indigenous malaria cases in 2014.

The “Global Technical Strategy for Malaria 2016-2030”, approved by the World Health Assembly in 2015, calls for the elimination of local transmission of malaria in at least 10 countries by 2020. WHO estimates that 21 countries are in a position to achieve this goal, including 6 countries in the African Region, where the burden of the disease is heaviest.

Shining a spotlight on countries moving toward elimination of malaria

“Our report shines a spotlight on countries that are well on their way to eliminating malaria,” said Dr Pedro Alonso, Director of the WHO Global Malaria Programme. “WHO commends these countries while also highlighting the urgent need for greater investment in settings with high rates of malaria transmission, particularly in Africa. Saving lives must be our first priority.”

Since the year 2000, malaria mortality rates have declined by 60% globally. In the WHO African Region, malaria mortality rates fell by 66% among all age groups and by 71% among children under 5 years.

The advances came through the use of core malaria control tools that have been widely deployed over the last decade: insecticide-treated bed-nets, indoor residual spraying, rapid diagnostic testing and artemisinin-based combination therapies.

But reaching the next level—elimination—will not be easy. Nearly half of the world’s population, 3.2 billion people, remain at risk of malaria. Last year alone, 214 million new cases of the disease were reported in 95 countries and more than 400 000 people died of malaria.

The efficacy of the tools that secured the gains against malaria in the early years of this century is now threatened. Mosquito resistance to insecticides used in nets and indoor residual spraying is growing. So too is parasite resistance to a component of one of the most powerful antimalarial medicines. Further progress against malaria will likely require new tools that do not exist today, and the further refining of new technologies.

Last year, for the first time, the European Medicines Agency issued a positive scientific opinion on a malaria vaccine. In January 2016, WHO recommended large-scale pilot projects of the vaccine in several African countries, which could pave the way for wider deployment in the years ahead.

Strong political commitment and funding are vital

“New technologies must go hand in hand with strong political and financial commitment,” Dr Alonso added.

Vigorous leadership by the governments of affected countries is key. Governments must strengthen surveillance of cases to identify gaps in coverage and be prepared to take action based on the information received. As countries approach elimination, the ability to detect every infection becomes increasingly important.

Reaching the goals of the “Global Technical Strategy” will require a steep increase in global and domestic funding—from $2.5 billion today to an estimated $8.7 billion annually by 2030.

Through robust financing and political will, affected countries can speed progress towards malaria elimination and contribute to the broader development agenda as laid out in the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”.

India Virtually Eliminates Tetanus as a Killer

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A year after eliminating polio, India has scored another public health victory. Following a 15-year campaign, the country has virtually eliminatedtetanus as a killer of newborns and mothers.

Tetanus, caused by a bacterium common in soil and animal dung, usually infects newborns when the umbilical cord is cut with a dirty blade. Mothers often receive the infection by giving birth on dirty surfaces or being aided by midwives with unwashed hands.

The disease — also known as lockjaw, after its muscle spasms — usually sets in about a week after a birth and is invariably fatal if not promptly treated. Fifteen years ago, the World Health Organization estimated that almost 800,000 newborns died of tetanus each year; now fewer than 50,000 do.

But the effort to reduce tetanus has gone slowly. The World Health Assembly — the annual gathering of the world’s health ministers in Geneva — originally set 1995 as the target date for its global elimination as a health threat.

Unlike polio or smallpox, tetanus can never be eradicated because bacterial spores exist in soil everywhere, said Dr. Poonam Khetrapal Singh, the director of the W.H.O.’s Southeast Asia region.

India has reduced cases to less than one per 1,000 live births, which the W.H.O. considers “elimination as a public health problem.” The country succeeded through a combination of efforts.

In immunization drives, millions of mothers received tetanus shots, which also protect babies for weeks.

Mothers who insisted on giving birth at home, per local tradition, were given kits containing antibacterial soap, a clean plastic sheet, and a sterile scalpel and plastic clamp for cutting and clamping the cord.

The country also created a program under which mothers were paid up to $21 to give birth in a clinic or hospital. “Lady health workers” from their neighborhoods were paid up to $9 per mother and up to $4 for bus or taxi fare to make sure women in labor went to clinics. The workers earned the full amount only after visiting each baby at home and giving tuberculosis shots.

The program succeeded despite corruption. The Times of India recently reported that an audit had found clearly fraudulent payments — including some to a 60-year-old woman registered as having been pregnant five times in 10 months.

WHO urges information sharing over novel coronavirus.

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The World Health Organisation (WHO) has urged countries with possible cases of novel coronavirus to share information.

The move comes after Saudi Arabia said the development of diagnostic tests had been delayed by patent rights on the NCoV virus by commercial laboratories.

Twenty-two deaths and 44 cases have been reported worldwide since 2012, the WHO says.

NCoV is from the same family of viruses as the one that caused Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars).

An outbreak of Sars in 2003 killed about 770 people. However, NCoV and Sars are distinct from each other, the WHO says.

The virus first emerged in Saudi Arabia, which is where most cases have since arisen.

Saudi Deputy Health Minister Ziad Memish raised his concerns at the World Health Assembly in Geneva.

“We are still struggling with diagnostics and the reason is that the virus was patented by scientists and is not allowed to be used for investigations by other scientists,” he said.

“I think strongly that the delay in the development of … diagnostic procedures is related to the patenting of the virus.”

‘Uncertainty’

WHO chief Margaret Chan expressed dismay at the information.

“Why would your scientists send specimens out to other laboratories on [sic] a bilateral manner and allow other people to take intellectual property rights on a new disease?” she asked.

“Any new disease is full of uncertainty.”

She is urging the WHO’s 194 member states to only share “viruses and specimens with WHO collaborating centres… not in a bilateral manner.”

She added: “I will follow it up. I will look at the legal implications together with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. No IP (intellectual property) should stand in the way of you, the countries of the world, to protect your people.”

WHO’s assistant director-general for health security, Dr Keiji Fukuda, said his agency had also been “struggling with diagnostics” because of property rights concerns and ill-defined international rules for sharing such materials, AP news agency reported.

Cases of novel coronavirus have been detected in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, the UK and France.

Twenty-two of the 44 cases reported worldwide have been in Saudi Arabia, WHO says.

Out of the 22 deaths, 10 of them have been in the kingdom, it adds.

Source: BBC

e�Tr 8(� �� noticing the movement of the bars when observing the smallest image – but they were slower at detecting movement in the larger images.

 

Michael Melnick of the University of Rochester, who was part of the research team said the results were very clear.

“From previous research, we expected that all participants would be worse at detecting the movement of large images, but high IQ individuals were much, much worse.

The authors explain that in most scenarios, background movement is less important than small moving objects in the foreground, for example driving a car, walking down a hall or moving your eyes across the room.

People with higher IQs appear to be able to concentrate better

As a person’s IQ increases, so too does his or her ability to filter out distracting background motion and concentrate on the foreground.

In an initial study on 12 people, there was a 64% correlation between motion suppression and IQ scores. In this larger study on 53 people, a 71% correlation was found.

In contrast, previous research on the link between intelligence and reaction times, colour discrimination and sensitivity to pitch found only a 20-40% correlation.

But the ability to ignore background movements is not the only indicator of intelligence.

“Because intelligence is such a broad construct, you can’t really track it back to one part of the brain,” says Duje Tadin, who also worked on the study.

“But since this task is so simple and so closely linked to IQ, it may give us clues about what makes a brain more efficient, and, consequently, more intelligent.

“We know from prior research which parts of the brain are involved in visual suppression of background motion.

“This new link to intelligence provides a good target for looking at what is different about the neural processing, what’s different about the neurochemistry, what’s different about the neurotransmitters of people with different IQs.”

Source: BBC