World Malaria Day, 25 April 2011

EDUCATIONAL: Malaria is one of the world's most common diseases, caused by a parasite that is transmitted to humans by a female mosquito's bite. 25 April is a day to commemorate global efforts to control malaria. Learn more about malaria in these games.

Play the Games

From: NOBELPRIZE.ORG

Educate your Children, family, friends and neighbours and PLAY THE GAMES:

http://nobelprize.or...dicine/malaria/

LaoPo

Great post and promotion! The unfortunate reality that malarial strains go virtually unnoticed and largely ignored by the broader medical and research community. :jap:

Great post and promotion! The unfortunate reality that malarial strains go virtually unnoticed and largely ignored by the broader medical and research community. :jap:

Not fair in respect to being ignored. Billions of dollars have been spent. Western nations provide almost US$1billion funding each year, despite having the lowest exposure.

The obligation of donor nations is to care for the health needs of their populations first. Diabetes, Cancer, Heart Disease and Geriatric Illnesses present national crises for donor nations and this is why these diseases obtain more funds. As well, the aforementioned diseases are hot button illnesses for donor nation populations since almost every person will be touched by one of the illnesses either directly or by way of a close family member. The parasite genome must better understood, and that takes time. New drugs can't be developed because we've reached the logjam of innovation. New innovations for treating infections are being discovered by way of cancer research and these are being shared with other fields of research. The bottleneck is in unraveling genetic codes and how the beasties replicate. Until that is sorted out, all the money in the world can't change ineffective treatments.

Malaria is in large part a preventable illness and it is up to the countries most at risk to take responsibility. In 2003, African countries made the Maputo Declaration, promising to dedcate 15% of their budgets to health care. Today, few if any African nations come close to respecting that pledge. Apparently guns, palaces and expensive lifestyles are more important.

In Thailand, millions of dollars are provided by donor nations(Japan, USA, Norway) Well respected Universities from foreign countries have financed research facilities. Examples are Oxford and the University of Pennsylvania. Thailand's Mahidol University makes a tremendous effort.

And for today's medical trivia; The abuse of methamphetamines causes treatment problems. In particular, the drug can interfere with diagnostic tests and it can interact with other drugs used in the adjunctive treatment of severe malaria. Is it the medical community's fault in Thailand if meth heads make themselves more susceptible to the disease?