Malaria – Muslim Science https://muslim-science.com Bridging the gap between Science and Islam Wed, 21 Aug 2024 19:55:14 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.26 Mali trees can kill the Malaria carrying mosquito and its parasite https://muslim-science.com/mali-trees-can-kill-the-malaria-carrying-mosquito-and-its-parasite/ Mon, 24 Apr 2017 19:41:35 +0000 http://muslim-science.com/?p=3804  Scientists from the University of Oslo have found two novel compounds from African trees to treat Malaria – the most lethal disease effecting poor nations worldwide.

The chemicals from the trees can kill both Malaria carrying mosquito and the plasmodium is a major breakthrough. The compounds can destroy the vector of the disease and its parasite.

Mosquitoes carry Plasmodium falciparum – the most lethal form of malaria parasite and transmit it to the humans and other mammals.

Now scholars from the University of Oslo extracted important compounds from the bark of the Olon (Zanthoxylum heitzii) tree commonly found from Congo to Cameroon. But they also discovered another important chemical from a related tree in Mali.

“We produced extracts from the bark of the Olon tree and found that it contains at least one compound that kills the mosquitoes which transmit the malarial parasite. But the bark also contains another substance that kills the parasite itself”, says Associate Professor Helle Wangensteen from Pharmaceutical Chemistry department who led the study.

From traditional healing to bio-labs

The Olon is being used in folklore medicines across Africa from a long time where local traditional healers use it to kill mosquitoes and other insects. Professor emeritus Karl Egil Malterud at the University of Oslo launched the project in 2012 with other scholars to further investigate the trees bark in Malaria eradication.

After years of research, they discovered two important and already known compounds from the bark of the tree. The Pellitorine destroys mosquitoes and dihydronitidin kills the parasite.

Though the compounds are not new to science but there powerful effects against the mosquitoes and parasites were little known before the Norwegian scientist’s work.

The pellitorine was isolated by a student, Nastaran Moussavi from the bark of Olon tree from Mali. Later she examined the chemical at a French institute to see its effects on mosquitos. When she exposed the mosquitoes to the compound, they died quickly.

“This caused the mosquitos to die, literally as flies! The experiments showed that pellitorine is toxic to mosquitoes”, Malterud said in a press release of the university.

According to Wangesteen, the dihydronitidine compound proved lethal for the parasite. The postdoc scholar, Ingvild Austarheim tested the compound at the School of Biosciences lab at the University of Melbourne. The chemical was so effective against the parasite, tested at the best facilities of Malaria parasite research in Melbourne.

” We have strong research collaboration with African scientists and institutes towards this research,” said  Wangensteen talking on telephone with Muslim Science.

Now, the Melbourne team is interested to further investigate the chemical for any potential drug.

No priority for Malaria

Often dubbed as disease of the poor, Malaria effects some 200 million people annually but neglected by research and pharmaceutical companies. The Sub-Sahara Africa has the highest share of global Malaria burden which is 90 per cent. According to WHO, it killed 429 000 people in 2015 and majority of them were children and pregnant women from African states.

Professor Malterud stress to spray the locally produced pellitorine solution in mosquito infested areas.

]]> Monkey malaria on the rise among humans in Malaysia https://muslim-science.com/monkey-malaria-on-the-rise-among-humans-in-malaysia/ https://muslim-science.com/monkey-malaria-on-the-rise-among-humans-in-malaysia/#respond Sun, 30 Nov 2014 18:53:45 +0000 http://muslim-science.com/?p=2781

Monkey malaria on the rise among humans in Malaysia

By Jan Piotrowski

Once only monkeys were suffering — now people are getting sick too. Monkey malaria, which is three times more severe than other forms of malaria, now accounts for two-thirds of human malaria cases in Malaysian Borneo, says Balbir Singh, director of the Malaria Research Centre at the University of Malaysia in Sarawak.Other South-East Asian countries such as Cambodia and Thailand are seeing infections too. Signs that monkey malaria may now be jumping directly between humans could lead to a further spike in cases, adds Singh.

The disease is caused by a parasite called Plasmodium knowlesi, transmitted by mosquitoes which usually feed on monkeys’ blood. The parasite was first described in 1932, and it was known that very occasionally people could get infected — for instance, when spending time in the jungle canopy being exposed to bites from mosquitoes that would normally prefer monkeys.

Effective strategies to prevent the spread of all forms of human malaria have cut global cases of the disease by a quarter since the beginning of the century, according to the WHO.

Over the past decade, human malaria cases in Malaysia plummeted due to a century-old malaria control programme, and the country has been hoping to eliminate the disease by 2020.

But in 2004 Singh and colleagues stumbled upon a complication to this goal.

They discovered that many more people were infected with monkey malaria than previously thought. About 58 per cent of malaria cases in the Kapit district of the Malaysian Borneo, the scientists found, were in fact due to the Plasmodium knowlesi.

And since 2008, cases have been soaring further. In 2013, 68 per cent of people with malaria in Malaysian Borneo had monkey malaria, says Singh.

A fall in local people’s immunity due to the success of eradication programmes for more common types of malaria could be to blame, he adds.

“If these mosquitoes are able to breed in human habitats then you suddenly have a problem.”

Janet Cox Singh, University of St Andrews

Another factor could be habitat loss, driving mosquitoes out of the jungle and increasing the chances of transmission to humans, says Janet Cox Singh, a malaria expert at the University of St Andrews, United Kingdom, who used to work with Balbir Singh. “If these mosquitoes are able to breed in human habitats then you suddenly have a problem,” she says.

The illness can be treated with standard malaria drugs, but it is harder to prevent than other forms of the disease: the mosquitoes that carry monkey malaria live outdoors, so insecticide-treated bed nets are useless.

Also, not many poor farmers are likely to buy expensive insect repellent, says Singh. And many may not be willing to wear long-sleeved clothing outdoors all the time, he adds – but these are the only effective ways to cut the risk of infection.

Balbir Singh presented his research at the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in New Orleans, United States, on 3 November.

 

This article was originally published on SciDev.Net. Read the original article.
Featured Image Credits: Flickr/Rainforest Action Network

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