India topped countries in the South-East Asia region for the most number of malaria cases and deaths in 2022, according to this report published by the World Health Organization (WHO). Each year, WHO’s World malaria report provides a comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of trends in malaria control and elimination across …
TWO BIOCHEMISTS at the Indian Institute of Science say chloroquine -- the primary drug used to combat malaria -- works against the malarial parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, by inhibiting protein synthesis. "This knowledge will help us understand how the parasite builds up resistance to the drug and it will also open …
A MALARIA vaccine made in Colombia by synthesising protein segments from the malaria parasite is proving promising in field trials, but its efficacy is still low. Vaccine developer Manuel Patarroyo of the National University of Colombia in Bogota reports the vaccine offers adults 38.8 per cent protection against malaria, but …
SCIENTISTS at the Malaria Research Centre (MRC), New Delhi, say neem oil used in low concentrations effectively repels malaria-carrying mosquitoes that are resistant to pesticides. This is welcome news because malaria has re-emerged as a major public health threat because the malaria-causing microorganism, Plasmodium falciparum, is increasingly resistant to chloroquine …
INDIAN scientists are exploring the possibility that neem could provide a non-toxic AIDS therapy. In Ayurveda and Unani, neem is prescribed for diverse ailments ranging from skin diseases to diabetes. Scientists at the National Institute of Immunology (NII), New Delhi, postulate neem's efficacy is not so much because of its …
THE BRAZILIAN government swung into action recently to evict thousands of gold-panners from a 94,000- sq-kin Yanomami reserve near the Venezuelan border to save the 9,000 members of South America's largest Indian tribe from an outbreak of malaria. Thousands of panners who left the reserve to celebrate Carnival elsewhere are …
INDIA'S miracle neem (Azadirachta indica) is moving from the laboratory to the market and many US and Australian firms are getting involved in manufacturing neem-based pesticides. Says Michael O'Shea, managing director of Neemoil Australia Pvt Ltd, "Indian suppliers have been swarming about us like flies around honey." In USA, a …
RESEARCHERS in New York have given a fillip to the fight against malaria by breaking into the genes of the parasite. The scientists report they have made test-tube clones of the 14 chromosomes, which contain the genes of the microbe that mosquitoes transmit to humans. They have also shown the …
A TUSSLE over registration procedures for two new kinds of pesticides that could form the cornerstone of India's malaria eradication programme has ended, but the question of which one will be used is likely to be decided only much later, and this is adversely affecting the malaria eradication programme. The …
THE NATION'S malaria control authorities are increasingly resorting to a method introduced by the British as far back as 1908 to check the disease: rearing fish that feed on mosquito larvae. The problem they face is that after a sharp decline in malaria from 6.46 million cases in the mid-70s …
WHY HAS the National Malaria Eradication Programme (NMEP) never really been able to contain the disease? The answer may finally be here. The Malaria Research Centre (MRC) in New Delhi has found that Anopheles culicifacies, the mosquito species responsible for 70 per cent of malaria in India and 80 per …
