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Query: UMLS:C0024530 (malaria)
 44,886 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Onchocerciasis is commonly known as River Blindness and affects about 18 million people around the world. It is transmitted by black flies that breed in river and stream rapids and transmit the parasitic microfilariae, Onchocerca volvulus, to people who live and work near such rivers. Infection with the microfilariae results in blindness or visual impairment for 1 or 2 million people. The microfilariae migrate to superficial tissues and may invade any part of the eye and ocular structure. Living worms cause little damage, however, their death triggers a localized inflammation which can lead to blindness. Sclerosing keratitis, a severe corneal involvement, is the major cause of blindness from the disease. The World Health Organization (WHO) Expert Committee on Onchocerciasis has estimated that 9% of the disease is found in Africa, the rest occur in Yemen and Latin America. Treatment with ivermectin is contraindicated for pregnant and lactating women, children under 5 years of age, asthmatics, and people with other diseases. The WHO Onchocerciasis Control Program in 11 countries of West Africa has eliminated the risk of onchocerciasis by aerial spraying of black fly breeding sites only from 1 country. A single annual oral dose (150 mg/kg) of ivermectin can reverse early lesions in the cornea. Ivermectin must be taken annually to sustain protection against blindness, thus its incorporation into primary health care along with malaria, AIDS, trachoma, xerophthalmia, and cataract is most cost effective. Nigeria and Tanzania have optometry schools, and optometrists can play a significant role in onchocerciasis control and blindness prevention programs by training local health care workers to distribute invermectin in vision screening programs.
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PMID:Onchocerciasis and other eye problems in developing countries: a challenge for optometrists. 824 90

Research is one of the four main activities of AITO. It is vital for the determination of health care priorities, and for the design, implementation, and evaluation of programs and projects in OCCCMED countries. Most of the research is surgical and focused on the diseases which cause blindness. Cataracts are the principal cause of blindness and have been the focus of many studies aimed at making surgery more accessible in terms of both geographical availability and cost. Trachoma is a major public health priority in the countries of the Sahel and a survey of its prevalence is underway in several countries. This study should lead to the development of preventive and curative treatments aimed at controlling blindness caused by trachoma by the year, 2020. Vitamin A deficiency, the cause of xerophthalmia and high mortality rates in infants, has been surveyed in several countries. A survey of glaucoma, another major cause of blindness which is often not recognized or treated, will be carried out in Bamako. Other studies focus on leprosy, malaria and the effects of visual disability on the quality of everyday life. It will be a major challenge over the next five years to develop the capacity within local populations to identify, design and implement research programs in community health aspects of ophthalmology that will take into account the needs and constraints of sub-Saharan Africa.
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PMID:[Research at the African Institute of Tropical Ophthalmology]. 964 37

Most drugs used in the treatment of malaria produce phototoxic side effects in both the skin and the eye. Cutaneous and ocular effects that may be caused by light include changes in skin pigmentation, corneal opacity, cataract formation and other visual disturbances including irreversible retinal damage (retinopathy) leading to blindness. The mechanism for these reactions in humans is unknown. We irradiated a number of antimalarial drugs (amodiaquine, chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, mefloquine, primaquine and quinacrine) with light (lambda > 300 nm) and conducted electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and laser flash photolysis studies to determine the possible active intermediates produced. Each antimalarial drug produced at least one EPR adduct with the spin-trap 5,5-dimethyl-1-pyrroline N-oxide in benzene: superoxide/hydroperoxyl adducts (chloroquine, mefloquine, quinacrine, amodiaquine and quinine), carbon-centered radical adducts (all but primaquine), or a nitrogen-centered radical adduct only (primaquine). In ethanol all drugs except primaquine produced some superoxide/hydroperoxyl adduct, with quinine, quinacrine, and hydroxychloroquine also producing the ethoxyl adduct. As detected with flash photolysis and steady-state techniques, mefloquine, quinine, amodiquine and a photoproduct of quinacrine produced singlet oxygen ([symbol: see text]delta = 0.38; [symbol: see text]delta = 0.36; [symbol: see text]delta = 0.011; [symbol: see text]delta = 0.013 in D2O, pD7), but only primaquine quenched singlet oxygen efficiently (2.6 x 10(8) M-1 s-1 in D2O, pD7). Because malaria is a disease most prevalent in regions of high light intensity, protective measures (clothing, sunblock, sunglasses or eye wraps) should be recommended when administering antimalarial drugs.
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PMID:Photophysical studies on antimalarial drugs. 1008 18

At the Hospital in Lund a new central building was opened in 1850 bringing the total number of beds up to 150. In the same year the hospital was divided into one "External" department including surgery and the maternity ward and one "Internal" including medicine and the ward for venereal diseases. We reviewed the patient charts and the yearly reports from 1851 to 1860 including 40 autopsy reports from this period. During these years, 8,785 patients were admitted, 2,292 of these for syphilis. Mean hospitalization time in the surgical department was 55-60 years, average 35-45 days, in the medical department a mean of around 45 days. The longest hospital stay was 350-900 days, mostly for patients with joint diseases, probably mainly tuberculosis. The number of patients admitted each year, the number of hospital days, age distribution of the patients and costs are presented in diagrams. The mean age of the patients was around 28 years, and the largest 5-year group was 16-20 years. Syphilis, various manifestations of tuberculosis and different kinds of diffuse gastric trouble were dominating diagnoses. Infectious diseases were common and serious during these years, but only very few patients, apart from the diagnoses mentioned above, were admitted to the hospital. Chlorosis, anaemia and rheumatic disorders were common. Hirudines, cupping, in some cases venesection or cauterization, locally irritating cataplasms, laxatives and enemas were dominating parts of the therapeutic resources. The operative activity was very moderate, only a total of 275 operations were performed for incarcerated hernia, stone, cataract, external tumour and injuries. Medical drugs were collected mostly from plants but various preparations of iron, mercury and lead and their salts were also frequently used. Quinine was the only drug for fevers, not only for malaria,. Several lay "bonesetters" were active in the area, the best known of whom, belonging to a family active for 200 years, were mentioned with some criticism in a few patient charts. Clinical education for the medical students was conducted by A.S. Bruzelius, director of the "Institutum Clinicum", and the professors of surgery and medicine had only limited access to inpatients for their teaching. In 1850, Bruzelius was relieved from the teaching of internal medicine, and this became the reason to divide the hospital into the two departments. The organization of medical education in Sweden was much discussed during most of last century after the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm was opened in 1812 as an addition to the universities in Uppsala and Lund. In 1859 a committee suggested that, since the number of patients available for the medical students in Uppsala and Lund (which we can verify for Lund) were very modest compared to the hospitals in Stockholm, all medical education should be concentrated to one medical school in Stockholm. Fortunately, it all ended with a compromise. Otherwise, the two universities might have been closed completely, since the faculties of medicine were very important parts of the universities of this time.
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PMID:[The hospital in Lund during the 1850's]. 1163 43

The selection of suitable field sites for integrated control of Anopheles mosquitoes using the sterile insect technique (SIT) requires consideration of the full gamut of factors facing most proposed control strategies, but four criteria identify an ideal site: 1) a single malaria vector, 2) an unstructured, relatively low density target population, 3) isolation of the target population and 4) actual or potential malaria incidence. Such a site can exist in a diverse range of situations or can be created. Two contrasting SIT field sites are examined here: the desert-flanked Dongola Reach of the Nile River in Northern State, Sudan, where malaria is endemic, and the island of La Reunion, where autochthonous malaria is rare but risk is persistent. The single malaria-transmitting vector at both sites is Anopheles arabiensis. In Sudan, the target area is a narrow 500 km corridor stretching from the rocky terrain at the Fourth Cataract--just above the new Merowe Dam, to the northernmost edge of the species range, close to Egypt. Vector distribution and temporal changes in density depend on the Nile level, ambient temperature and human activities. On La Reunion, the An. arabiensis population is coastal, limited and divided into three areas by altitude and exposure to the trade winds on the east coast. Mosquito vectors for other diseases are an issue at both sites, but of primary importance on La Reunion due to the recent chikungunya epidemic. The similarities and differences between these two sites in terms of suitability are discussed in the context of area-wide integrated vector management incorporating the SIT.
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PMID:Field site selection: getting it right first time around. 1991 79

This paper discusses the traditional Chinese medicine and its wide utility in eradicating malaria, treating hemorrhoids and kidney stones, and simple and safe method of cataract extraction perfected by the Chinese physicians.
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PMID:Traditional chinese medicine making - its mark on the world. 2255 94

Malaria is one of the most common diseases in the African population. Genetic variance in glucose dehydrogenase 6-phosphate (G6PD) in humans determines the response to malaria exposure. In this study, we aimed to analyze the frequency of two single-nucleotide polymorphisms (G202A and A376G) present in two local tribes of Sudanese Arabs from the region of the 4th Nile cataract in Sudan, the Shagia and Manasir. The polymorphisms in G6PD were analyzed in 217 individuals (126 representatives of the Shagia tribe and 91 of the Manasir tribe). Real-time PCR and RFLP-PCR were utilized to analyze significant differences in the prevalence of alleles and genotypes. The 202A G6P allele frequency was 0.7%, whereas the G202 variant was found in 93.3% of cases. The AA, GA, and GG genotype frequencies for the A376G G6PD codon among the Shagia were 88, 11.1, and 0.9%, respectively; this is similar to the distribution among Manasir tribe representatives (94.5, 3.3, and 2.2%, respectively; OR 3.44 [0.85-16.17], p=0.6). Notably, in north-eastern Sudan the G6PD B (202G/376A) compound genotype frequency was 90.3%, whereas the G6PD A variant (202G/376G) was found in 1.4% of that population. Identification of the G6PD A- variant (202A/376G) in the isolated Shagia tribe provides important information regarding the tribal ancestry. Taken together, the data presented in this study suggest that the Shagia tribe was still nomadic between 4000 and 12,000 years ago. Moreover, the lack of G6PD A- genotype among ethnically diverse Monasir tribesmen indicates a separation of the Shagia from the other tribes in the region of the 4th Nile cataract in Sudan.
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PMID:Analysis of the genetic variants of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase in inhabitants of the 4th Nile cataract region in Sudan. 2314 19

Cribra orbitalia is a common skeletal lesion found on ancient human remains excavated from the Nile Valley. Recent etiological research implicates hemolytic anemia as a main factor leading to the formation of cribra orbitalia. Further, an association between the hemolytic anemia caused by malaria and cribra orbitalia has been demonstrated. The presence of malaria in the ancient Nile Valley has been verified directly through genetic and immunologic studies of Egyptian mummies, but its prevalence and spread remain unknown. As some models have pointed to the Nile Valley as the pathway of malarial dispersion during the Egyptian Dynastic period, variability in cribra orbitalia rates should provide a way to track the disease spread. This study surveyed cribra orbitalia frequencies at 29 ancient Nile Valley sites, representing 4760 individuals ranging from prehistoric to Christian periods and situated between the 3rd Cataract and Nile Delta. Results showed high cribra orbitalia rates, with an overall mean of 42.8% of the total population affected. Over time and space, the data showed no significant correlation, suggesting high levels of anemia affected individuals in the Nile Valley equally from late pre-dynastic to Christian periods. These findings suggest widespread endemic malaria in the Nile Valley before Dynastic Egypt.
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PMID:Cribra orbitalia in the ancient Nile Valley and its connection to malaria. 2953 34