|
The Role Of Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Malaria, And Tuberculosis On The Hiv-1/Aids Epidemic In Africa (p 2177)
June 19, 2002The effect of HIV-1 on other infectious diseases in Africa is an increasing public health concern. In a review in this week's issue of THE LANCET, Elizabeth Corbett from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, and the Harare Biomedical Research and Training Institute, Zimbabwe, and colleagues describe the role that three major infectious diseases-malaria, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and tuberculosis-have had in the HIV-1 epidemic. The high prevalence of untreated STD infections has been a major factor facilitating the spread of HIV-1 in Africa; with the synergistic interaction between HIV-1 transmission and genital herpes being of especial concern for control of both diseases. Increased susceptibility to tuberculosis after infection with HIV-1 has led to a rising incidence and threat of increased transmission of tuberculosis. Clinical malaria occurs with an increased frequency and severity in HIV-1-infected individuals, especially during pregnancy. As with tuberculosis, STDs, and other communicable HIV-1-associated diseases, the net effect of HIV-1 might include increased rates of malaria transmission across communities.
Elizabeth Corbett comments: "The HIV-1 epidemic in Africa has reached such an extreme magnitude that further major consequences are inevitable, and will include increasing difficulty in controlling other infectious diseases. One of the cruel ironies is that the severity of the African HIV-1 epidemic is in itself a direct reflection of the impoverished and imperfect nature of health care that preceded the epidemic, notably poor control of STDs. Improvements were made in infectious disease control in Africa during the last half of the 20th century, but to a limited extent that left endemic disease and transmission rates well above those of more-developed countries. HIV-1 has now so compounded this situation that it would take a massive scale of interventions to return regional health to pre-epidemic standards. Without intervention, however, public health will become more difficult and expensive to maintain since the incidence, transmission, and drug resistance of other endemic diseases are affected by HIV-1."
Lancet
Malaria News and Current Malaria Events RSSTuberculosis presents major challenges to HIV treatment in developing countries
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) care and treatment programs in resource-limited settings must aggressively address tuberculosis (TB) and the emerging multidrug-resistant TB epidemic to save patient lives and to curb the global TB burden, a major cause of death for persons with HIV.
Malaria Millennium Development Goal 'unlikely to be met'
The Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria globally is unlikely to be met, according to Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow Professor Bob Snow.
Gene variant found in those with African ancestry increases odds of HIV infection
A variant of a gene found only in people of African ancestry increases the odds of becoming infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) by 40 percent, according to a long-term study of African Americans reported in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, a publication of Cell Press.
Genetic variation increases HIV risk in Africans
A genetic variation which evolved to protect people of African descent against malaria has now been shown to increase their susceptibility to HIV infection by up to 40 per cent, according to new research. Conversely, the same variation also appears to prolong survival of those infected with HIV by approximately two years.
Identifying and disrupting key elements of malaria's 'sticky sack' adhesion strategy
Malaria is one of the most devastating diseases afflicting humanity. It infects and debilitates about 600 million people and kills up to three million people every year, mainly in the wet tropical regions of the world. Children and pregnant women are at particularly high risk.
Discovery of key malaria proteins could mean sticky end for parasite
Scientists funded by the Wellcome Trust have identified a key mechanism that enables malaria-infected red blood cells to stick to the walls of blood vessels and avoid being destroyed by the body's immune system. The research, published today in the journal Cell, highlights an important potential new target for anti-malarial drugs.
Gene therapy research in developing world raises ethical red flags: experts
Early stage gene therapy clinical trials are recruiting patients from the developing world, providing medically deprived populations access to interventions that show promise but have largely unknown effects in humans.
Insect warning colors aid cancer and tropical disease drug discovery
Brightly colored beetles or butterfly larvae nibbling on a plant may signal the presence of chemical compounds active against cancer cell lines and tropical parasitic diseases, according to researchers at Smithsonian's Tropical Research Institute in Panama.
Study shows male homosexuality can be explained through a specific model of Darwinian evolution
Reporting in this week's PLoS ONE, an Italian research team, consisting of Andrea Camperio Ciani and Giovanni Zanzotto at the University of Padova and Paolo Cermelli at the University of Torino, found that the evolutionary origin and maintenance of male homosexuality in human populations could be explained by a model based around the idea of sexually antagonistic selection, in which genetic factors spread in the population by giving a reproductive advantage to one sex while disadvantaging the other.
New molecular insight into amboebic dysentery
In the June 15th issue of G&D, Dr. Sinisa Urban (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine) and colleagues reveal a potential role for the rhomboid enzyme, EhROM1, in the pathogenesis of the enteric protozoan parasite, E. histolytica.
More Malaria News Articles
| © 2008 BrightSurf.com |