MAHENTO

Poll: More Americans Than Ever Want Marijuana Legalized

Marijuana enthusiasts in the United States celebrate April 20 — or 4/20 — as an informal holiday, but this year they have something else to get excited about: New polling data show support for legalization of the drug is at an all-time high.

Sixty percent of Americans say they support the legalization of marijuana, according to a poll released Thursday by Quinnipiac University. The same poll taken in December 2012 showed 51 percent of respondents supported legalization.

“From a stigmatized, dangerous drug bought in the shadows, to an accepted treatment for various ills, to a widely accepted recreational outlet, marijuana has made it to the mainstream,” Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, said in a statement.

According to the poll, an overwhelming 94 percent of respondents said they support the use of marijuana by adults for medicinal purposes — also the highest level of support seen in the poll’s history.

Seventy-three percent of Americans said they oppose enforcement of federal laws against marijuana in states that have legalized medical or recreational marijuana.

Currently, 29 states have legalized marijuana use for medicinal purposes, and eight states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational use.

Marijuana advocates across the country held events to observe the annual 4/20 quasi-holiday. In Washington, D.C., activists planned to distribute free joints to congressional staffers on Capitol Hill. However, Capitol Police interrupted the event, arresting two women and one man, and charging them with possession with intent to distribute pot. Four other women were charged with simple possession.

One of the organizers, Nikolas Schiller, told the Associated Press that police “decided to play politics” with the demonstration and that the people arrested committed no crimes. “We’ll see them in court,” Schiller said.
…

Lead Poisons Children in LA Neighborhoods, Rich and Poor

With its century-old Spanish-style homes tucked behind immaculately trimmed hedges, San Marino, California, is among the most coveted spots to live in the Los Angeles area.

Its public schools rank top in the state, attracting families affiliated with CalTech, the elite university blocks away. The city’s zoning rules promote a healthy lifestyle, barring fast-food chains.

Home values in L.A. County census tract 4641, in the heart of San Marino and 20 minutes from downtown Los Angeles, can rival those in Beverly Hills. The current average listing price: $2.9 million.

But the area has another, unsettling distinction, unknown to residents and city leaders until now: More than 17 percent of small children tested here have shown elevated levels of lead in their blood, according to previously undisclosed L.A. County health data.

That far exceeds the 5 percent rate of children who tested high for lead in Flint, Michigan, during the peak of that city’s water contamination crisis.

The local blood test data, obtained through a records request from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, shows two neighboring San Marino census tracts are among the hotspots for childhood lead exposure in the L.A. area.

San Marino is hardly alone. Across sprawling L.A. County, more than 15,000 children under age 6 tested high for lead between 2011 and 2015. In all, Reuters identified 323 neighborhood areas where the rate of elevated tests was at least as high as in Flint. In 26 of them — including the two in San Marino, and some in economically stressed areas — the rate was at least twice Flint’s.

The data stunned San Marino Mayor Richard Sun, who said he wasn’t aware of any poisoning cases in the community.

“This is a very serious matter, and as the mayor, I really want to further explore it,” Sun said upon reviewing the numbers presented by Reuters. During an interview at City Hall, he directed city officials to investigate potential sources of exposure.

Thousands of U.S. lead hotspots

The L.A.-area findings are part of an ongoing Reuters examination of hidden lead hazards nationwide. Since last year, the news agency has identified more than 3,300 U.S. neighborhood areas with documented childhood lead poisoning rates double those found in Flint. Studies based on previously available data, surveying broad child populations across entire states or counties, usually couldn’t pinpoint these communities.

Despite decades of U.S. progress in curbing lead poisoning, millions of children remain at risk. Flint’s disaster is just one example of a preventable public health crisis that continues in hotspots coast to coast, Reuters has found.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s threshold for elevated lead is 5 micrograms per deciliter of blood. Children who test at or above that threshold warrant a public health response, the agency says. Even a slight elevation can reduce IQ and stunt childhood development. There’s no safe level of lead in children’s bodies.

In San Marino, old lead-based paint is likely the main source of exposure, county health officials said, but they added that imported food, medicine or pottery from China could also be a factor. About 80 percent of San Marino homes were built before 1960, and the community has a large Asian population, U.S. Census data show.

Exposure from old paint, drinking water and soil are widely researched. Other risks — including some candies, ceramics, spices or remedies containing lead from China, Mexico, India and other countries — are less known.

The L.A. blood data covers nearly 1,550 census tracts, or county subdivisions, each with an average population around 4,000. It shows the number of small children tested in each tract, and how many tested high.

In California, the exposure risks children face can vary wildly by neighborhood. Many L.A. areas have little or no documented lead poisoning. Countywide, 2 percent of children tested high. But in hundreds of areas, the rate is far higher.

Reuters crunched the data, and neighborhood-level results can be explored on an interactive map.

In the trouble areas, old housing is commonplace. Nearly half of L.A. County’s homes were built before 1960. Lead was banned from household paint in 1978, but old paint can peel, chip, or pulverize into toxic dust.

Children are often exposed in decrepit housing. But in some U.S. areas, nearly a third of lead poisoning cases can be linked to home renovation projects, said Mary Jean Brown, a public health specialist at Harvard University and former director of the CDC’s lead prevention program.

San Marino residents take pride in preserving their historic homes. Among the measures Mayor Sun wants to consider: An ordinance to ensure safe practices any time home repairs or renovations could disturb lead paint.

Poverty is another predictor of lead poisoning, and many of L.A.’s danger zones are concentrated in low-income or gentrifying areas near downtown and on the city’s densely populated south side.

In one low-income area of South L.A., Reuters met with the family of Kendra Nicole Rojas, a three-year-old recently diagnosed with lead poisoning, only to find that 63 other small children living within a six-block radius have also tested high.

“A lot of people don’t even think of the West Coast as a place where kids get poisoned,” said Linda Kite, executive director at L.A.-based Healthy Homes Collaborative. “The biggest problem we have is medical apathy. Many doctors don’t test children for lead.”

The findings highlight a need for greater medical surveillance, abatement and awareness in the health-conscious county of 10 million, public health specialists said.

The county and city of Los Angeles have dedicated lead prevention programs that work with at-risk families. When a child’s blood levels persist above 10 micrograms per deciliter — double the CDC threshold — the family receives a home inspection, nurse visits and follow-up.

The effects of lead poisoning are irreversible, and the programs’ broader goal is to prevent any exposure. But success hinges on many actors, and assistance from agencies such as the CDC, the department of Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency. Like other regions, L.A. faces a looming hurdle in attacking hazards: President Donald Trump’s federal budget proposals would sharply cut funds for many lead-related programs.

“We’re aware of lots of areas where homes or soil contain significant levels of lead, and those can represent an urgent need to act,” said Maurice Pantoja, chief environmental health specialist for the county program. “Any fewer resources toward poisoning prevention would be a tragedy.”

A poisoned home

Just a few miles west of San Marino, in South Pasadena, one boy’s poisoning serves as a cautionary tale.

In an old, pastel-colored home on Hope Street, an infant named Connor was exposed to lead paint and dust in 2012.

The property is owned by California’s Department of Transportation, Caltrans, which had plans to expand a freeway in the area. Its floors were coated in chipping lead paint. During a bathroom repair, a crew showed up in “hazmat suits,” said tenant Cynthia Wright, Connor’s grandmother.

But as the crew worked, stripping toxic paint from walls and fixtures and unleashing plumes of dust, they told the family there was no need to leave the home, Wright said.

That was an unfortunate lapse, the state agency acknowledged. “There were errors in handling communications regarding this property, and Caltrans has revised its business practices,” spokeswoman Lauren Wonder said, leading to “greater vigilance.”

Connor continued crawling around the floors. At age one, he began missing developmental milestones. Suddenly, he lost the ability to use the few words he could say.

When his mother, Heather Nolan, had him tested for lead, the result was almost five-fold the CDC threshold. Lead levels often peak among children ages one to two, when they are increasingly mobile and have hand-to-mouth behaviors.

Now six, Connor needs speech and occupational therapy up to five times a week. He hasn’t been able to integrate in a mainstream classroom.

“It’s not an easy road,” his grandmother said. “I would tell anyone in an old home, you really need to be aware of the risks.”

In 2015, the family settled a landmark lawsuit against Caltrans for $10 million. Wright still lives in the home, which has been remediated.

Poor prospects

Amid an affordable housing crisis in Los Angeles, many renters don’t confront landlords to fix lead paint hazards, fearing eviction if they raise the alarm, said Kite, the healthy homes advocate. That helps explain why so many children in south and central L.A. test high.

Karla Rojas, 26, was living with her extended family on 30th Street in a low-income area of South L.A. last year when her toddler, Kendra, started getting chronic bouts of illness.

Mother and daughter slept on the floor, near a bookshelf where an inspector later found flaking lead paint. Tested at the local St. John’s Well Child & Family Center, Kendra’s result came back at several times the CDC threshold.

Once county officials got involved, the landlord repainted the shelf and other areas where lead was found. Still, terrified her daughter’s exposure would continue, Rojas moved out.

“When you read about what lead can do, it makes me fear for her future,” said Rojas, watching three-year-old Kendra play with two new pet rabbits.

Exposure is common in the area, said Jeff Sanchez, a consultant at public health research firm Impact Assessment, which works with L.A.’s prevention program. Around the neighborhood, code inspectors have cited at least 35 percent of residential properties for chipping or peeling paint violations over a four-year period.

Paint isn’t the only peril. A mile and a half east, in Vernon, the now-shuttered Exide Technologies battery-recycling plant spewed noxious emissions for decades, polluting soil in thousands of properties with lead residue. A planned $175 million cleanup will rely in part on children’s blood tests to determine which properties should be sanitized first. Past testing has shown that children living close to the plant are at heightened risk.

Yet California, like Michigan, doesn’t require lead screening for all children, leaving many untested.

Prompted in part by Reuters’ previous coverage, California cities and lawmakers are pushing new initiatives to protect children.

Bill Quirk, chair of the state legislature’s Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials, recently introduced a bill to require screening for all small children.

“I strongly support blood lead testing,” said U.S. Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard, who represents part of L.A. County. “It’s important that residents have information about the threats they may face in their communities.”

‘Don’t worry, he’s not at risk’

California’s current policy is to test children with known risk factors, including those enrolled in government assistance programs for the poor like Medicaid. The protocol, applied unevenly by health care providers, can miss poisoned kids.

In 2013, when apparel designer Amanda Gries and her husband, a Hollywood film editor, rented a home in L.A.’s West Adams neighborhood, she was pregnant with son Wyatt, now 3. The century-old mansion was in a rapidly gentrifying area south of downtown, near landmarks such as the Staples Center and the University of Southern California.

Gries, concerned about peeling paint and dust in the home, urged a pediatrician to screen Wyatt before his first birthday.

“The doctor didn’t want to test,” Gries said. “The message was, ‘Don’t worry, he’s not at risk.’ It was like he didn’t fit the profile.”

Gries insisted, and her fears were confirmed when Wyatt tested at nearly double the CDC’s elevated threshold. An inspection found lead in dust on the floor of Wyatt’s bedroom at 30 times the federal hazard level.

The family moved out quickly and searched citywide before settling into a home on L.A.’s west side, chosen because no lead was detected inside. Wyatt is bright and energetic, Gries said, but has impulsive behaviors. He needs occupational therapy for sensory issues, at nearly $200 per session.

Keeping Wyatt away from lead hazards and feeding him a special diet are part of the Gries’ daily routine. Poor nutrition can worsen lead poisoning, allowing children’s bodies to absorb more of the heavy metal.

“All we can do is hope he’s OK,” said Gries.
…

Microsoft’s Gates: British Foreign Aid Cuts Could Cost African Lives

Billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates is urging British leaders not to back down from their commitment to foreign aid, saying it could cost lives in Africa.

Gates on Wednesday was in London, where campaigning has started for early elections called by Prime Minister Teresa May.

May has so far declined to say whether she will heed calls by fellow Conservatives to slash British foreign aid as part of her party platform.

Gates told the Guardian newspaper Wednesday that a British refusal to commit itself to targeted spending on foreign aid could hurt efforts to wipe out malaria in Africa.

“The big aid givers now are the U.S., Britain and Germany … and if those three back off, a lot of ambitious things going on with malaria, agriculture and reproductive health simply would not get done,” he said.

Gates said British funding has made an “absolute phenomenal difference” in eradicating tropical diseases that affect more than 1 billion people.

Many conservatives want the government to spend more money at home to combat domestic crises. Some also contend that foreign aid money is frequently squandered.

Gates said as a business executive who spends $5 billion a year helping developing nations, he hates wasting money. But he told an audience of British politicians and diplomats that no country can “build a wall to hold back the next global epidemic,” and that foreign aid combats socioeconomic problems “at the source.”
…

Komodo Dragon Blood May Offer a Novel Antibiotic

Komodo dragons, fearsome giant lizards found in Indonesia, may be a source of a potent antibiotic. If so, researchers say the agent could be an answer to the growing, global health problem of antibiotic resistance.  

Huge, toothy and aggressive, Komodo dragons are surrounded by filth in their daily lives. As a result, Barney Bishop, a biochemist at George Mason University near Washington, said Komodo dragons have developed what he called a “robust” immune system.

Bishop studies molecules produced by the immune system as a front-line defense against infection. That, he said, is the reason for the interest in Komodos.

“They are known to eat carrion; they live in an unsanitary environment; they have been recorded to have up to 57 bacterial strains in their mouths,” some of which can cause disease, he said. “Yet the reptiles themselves are not harmed by these bacteria, whether it’s in their mouths or wounds inflicted by other lizards.”

Bishop and his colleagues, working with blood from Komodos, isolated peptides, or small proteins, produced by the reptiles’ immune systems. The peptides, Bishop said, seem to have remarkable anti-bacterial properties.

Artificial version tested

Researchers made artificial versions of these peptides and tested the most promising one — DRGN-1, or DRAGON-1 — in wounded mice and human skin cell cultures. They found the protein molecules exhibited three outstanding properties: They destroyed the outer layer of bacteria, dissolved biofilms — a sticky colony that microbes form to shield against antibiotics — and speeded up healing.

The work with Komodo dragon peptides was published in the journal Biofilms and Microbiomes.

Bishop said, “Their peptides may offer some promise and some new insights or provide new templates for development of new therapeutics to treat infection.”

Bishop said the three-pronged action of DRGN-1, if made into an antibiotic, would make it unlikely that disease-causing bacteria could become drug-resistant.  

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency, an agency of the U.S. Defense Department, paid for the research. The military is interested in the work because it may relate to bioweapons.

Samples of blood for the study were taken from a 45.3-kilogram (100-pound) male Komodo dragon named Tujah who lives at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm and Zoological Park in Florida.

Bishop said only a one-time sample of blood was needed because the peptides were artificially reproduced, so no animal was harmed for the study.
…

Arctic Seas Called ‘Dead End’ for Plastic Floating from US, Europe

The Arctic is a dead end for floating plastic waste dumped in the Atlantic Ocean off Europe and the United States and swept north by ocean currents to a polar graveyard, scientists said Wednesday.

Levels of plastic found east of Greenland and in the Barents Sea off Norway and Russia were far higher than expected for the sparsely populated regions, according to the report showing how man-made pollution extends even to remote parts of the globe.

“The northeastern Atlantic sector of the Arctic Ocean appeared as a dead end for the surface transport of plastic pollution,” the authors wrote in the open access journal Science Advances.

The survey, by the Tara Oceans circumpolar expedition that sampled 42 Arctic sites in 2013 with nets, found hundreds of thousands of mostly tiny bits of plastic per square kilometer (square mile) in the northeastern Atlantic region.

Much of the plastic was apparently old and had floated north from Europe and North America. Levels were comparable to those in ocean gyres, vast swirling currents nearer the equator, where plastic debris is known to accumulate, they wrote.

“Ninety-nine percent of the floating plastic in the Arctic was confined in the Greenland and Barents Seas,” lead author Andres Cozar of the University of Cadiz in Spain told Reuters.

“The plastic pollution in the rest of the Arctic Polar Circle was low or absent,” he said.

Global warming could open the Arctic to more pollution, partly as the extent of sea ice shrinks. “High loads of marine plastic pollution may become prevalent in the Arctic in the future,” the study said.

The study said there was “special concern” about the impact of plastic on fragile Arctic wildlife, including on the seabed where bits may eventually sink.

Northern fulmar birds on the Arctic Svalbard islands north of Norway, for instance, have been found with high levels of plastic in their stomachs from discarded plastic bags, fishing nets and other trash.

Separately, the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP), which was not involved in the report, is examining wider pollution risks from plastics.

“We’re looking to see how big the problem is for the Arctic — both the physical plastic and the chemicals attached to the surface,” Lars-Otto Reiersen, executive secretary of AMAP, told Reuters.
…

Italy Warns of Measles Epidemic Amid Debate About Vaccines

Italy reported a measles epidemic Wednesday following a fall-off in vaccinations, as the United States issued a warning to visitors about the outbreak of the potentially fatal disease.

The Health Ministry said there had been almost 1,500 registered cases of measles so far this year, compared with 840 in all of 2016 and 250 in 2015.

“Italy and Romania have an epidemic at the moment,” said Walter Ricciardi, president of the Higher Health Institute, adding that he understood why the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had issued an advisory this week.

Ricciardi told Radio 24 that the United States, unlike Italy, had launched a massive campaign to persuade parents to vaccinate their children.

The Higher Health Institute said that only about 85 percent of Italy’s 2-year-olds were being vaccinated against measles, well below the 95 percent threshold recommended by the World Health Organization to block the illness.

The center-left government has accused the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) of spreading concern among parents by questioning the safety of some vaccines and by loudly denouncing efforts to make vaccinations mandatory.

‘They bring a risk’

“Vaccinations have played a vital role in eradicating terrible illnesses … but nonetheless, they bring a risk associated with side effects,” M5S founder Beppe Grillo wrote in 2015, saying mandatory vaccination represented a gift for multinational pharmaceutical firms.

A leading M5S politician, Andrea Cecconi, suggested last month the jump in measles cases might be part of a natural cycle for the illness rather than a preventable epidemic.

Renewed concern over measles came amid fury among doctors over a program on state broadcaster RAI that highlighted the possible side effects of the human papillomavirus vaccine, which protects against cervical cancer.

The M5S defended the report, but health officials accused RAI of being unnecessarily alarmist.

“It is very serious that a TV program, which is supposed to be at the service of citizens, spreads fear by telling lies and giving credence to the anti-vaccine lobby,” said Giuseppe Mele, chairman of the Italian Society of Pediatricians.
…

Planet Hunters Find Another ‘Earthy’ Planet in Our Galactic Neighborhood

The hits, they just keep coming!

News was made in February when astronomers found seven potential earth-like planets orbiting the red dwarf star Trappist-1.

Wednesday, another red dwarf star is making headlines with the announcement of a ‘super earth’ found orbiting around the small red star LHS 1140.

Super Earth?

VOA spoke with Jason Dittmann, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, about the find.

He is the lead author of the paper laying out the new findings, which is being published Thursday in the journal Nature.

He calls the planet a “Super Earth,” not because it’s any better than our blue-green sphere, but because it “is somewhere between the size of the Earth (the largest rocky planet in the Solar System) and Neptune. These planets are actually pretty common, but we don’t have any of them in our own Solar System so we don’t know much about them.”

Finding one is a big deal in general. But this one, dubbed LHS 1140b, is extra-special because it has turned up in the dwarf star’s habitable zone, that area in space where liquid water can exist on the surface.

The planet is 10 times closer to the star than Earth is to the sun, but red dwarfs are much smaller and much cooler than the giant inferno that keeps us warm.

The other special thing about this planet is that it’s about 5 billion years old, and according to Dittmann, “Five billion years should be more than enough time for life to develop [if it’s easy to develop, no one knows!] So this is definitely a good thing.”

Too close for comfort

In general, one big problem with the habitable planets scientists have found around red dwarfs — and this goes for a few of the seven they’ve found on Trappist-1 — and Proxima b, another found last year — is that they are so close to their star that the stellar radiation that is bombarding the planets can literally strip away any atmosphere.

And this may be the case here.

But LHS 1140, according to team member Nicola Astudillo-Defru, “spins more slowly and emits less high-energy radiation than other similar low-mass stars.” That’s good news because the planet is so old and so big that chances are decent that it’s managed to hold onto an atmosphere.

Another bit of good news is that terrestrial planet LHS 1140b as seen from earth passes almost directly in front of its star, and that makes it a lot easier to do follow up research that Dittmann and his colleagues are already planning.

“We’re definitely already applying for as much telescope time as we can get our hands on,” Dittmann says, “to start looking at this planet’s atmosphere. And when the next generation of telescopes come online [The James Webb Space Telescope, and the ground-based Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) and European-Extremely Large Telescope (EELT) ], we’ll be in a great spot to find out what sorts of atmospheres planets around M dwarfs have.”

The Webb telescope is expected to launch next year, but the Giant Magellan telescope won’t be online until 2025, and the EELT won’t be working until 2024.

That’s a long time to wait, and undoubtedly there’ll be a long list of planets to explore by then. But the hope is that by studying the atmosphere of all these planets in the habitable zone, we might find some of the biological signatures of living things. Two of the European members of the team, Xavier Delfosse and Xavier Bonfils say that it’s the best candidate so far.

“The LHS 1140 system might prove to be an even more important target for the future characterization of planets in the habitable zone than Proxima b or TRAPPIST-1. This has been a remarkable year for exoplanet discoveries!” wrote Delfosse and Bonfils.

And there certainly will be more on the way.

 
…

WHO Reports ‘Record-breaking’ Progress in Fighting Neglected Tropical Diseases

The World Health Organization said Tuesday that unprecedented progress had been made in tackling many of the world’s most disfiguring and disabling neglected tropical diseases over the past 10 years.  

Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, said there has been “record-breaking progress towards bringing ancient scourges like sleeping sickness and elephantiasis to their knees.”

About 1.5 billion people in 149 countries, down from 1.9 billion in 2010, are affected by neglected tropical diseases (NTD), a group of 18 disorders that disproportionately affect the very poor.

In 2007, the WHO and a group of global partners devised a strategy for better tackling and controlling NTDs.  

Five years ago, a group of nongovernmental organizations, private and public partners signed the London Declaration, committing greater support and resources to the elimination or eradication of 10 of the most common NTDs by the end of the decade.

“That has been a game changer in the expansion of NTD interventions worldwide,” said Dirk Engel, director of the WHO’s Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Meeting on Wednesday

The WHO’s fourth report on neglected tropical diseases was launched to coincide with a one-day meeting Wednesday at the agency’s headquarters to take stock of what has been achieved in the fight against NTDs and to explore ways to move the process forward.   

Engel said health ministers, representatives from pharmaceutical companies, academics, donors and philanthropists “will look at the changing landscape of NTDs” and explore better ways of integrating the fight against these diseases into global health and development.    

The report described achievements made in controlling the debilitating diseases. For example, it noted that an estimated 1 billion people received 1.5 billion treatments donated by pharmaceutical companies for one or more NTDs in 2015 alone.

It cited dramatic successes in efforts to eliminate visceral leishmaniasis, a parasitic, disfiguring disease that attacks the internal organs.  

“If you get it, it kills. There is no way out,” said Engel.  

The disease is prevalent in Southeast Asia, particularly in Bangladesh, India and Nepal. Engel said a subregional program was organized to provide early treatment with donated medicines and vector control through indoor residual spraying, similar to that used in malaria control.

“With those two interventions, you reduce the incidence of visceral leishmaniasis almost to nothing,” said Engel. “And the aim was to have less than one case in 10,000 people at the subdistrict level, which is a tough target.”

He noted that the disease had been eliminated in 82 percent of subdistricts in India, 97 percent of subdistricts in Bangladesh, and eliminated entirely in Nepal.

“This is a result that we had not anticipated a few years back,” he said.

While Asia is burdened with the greatest number of NTD cases, Africa has the highest concentration of the diseases. Engel told VOA that between 450,000 and 500,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa were infected by at least one tropical disease — but usually several — at the same time.   

He said Africa was making excellent progress in controlling neglected tropical diseases. African sleeping sickness has been reduced from 37,000 new cases in 1999 to fewer than 3,000 cases in 2015, and Guinea worm disease has gone down “to only 25 human cases, putting eradication within reach,” he said.

Engel noted that lymphatic filariasis, an infection transmitted by mosquitoes, causing enlargement of limbs and genitals, also was being brought under control.

“Some countries are lagging a bit behind. Some countries are actually doing fairly well,” he said. “We have just acknowledged the first African country that has eliminated lymphatic filariasis as a public health problem — Togo.”

He noted that so much progress has been made in the treatment of onchocerciasis, or river blindness, that “we are now thinking of setting a new target of elimination post-2020.”

In another important advance, the report found that trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness, “has been eliminated as a public health problem” in Oman, Morocco and Mexico.

Affected areas

Neglected tropical diseases used to be prevalent throughout the world. Now, they are found only in tropical and subtropical regions with unsafe water, bad hygiene and sanitation, and poor housing conditions.  

“Poor people living in remote, rural areas, urban slums or conflict zones are most at risk,” said the report.

The World Health Organization said improving water and sanitation for 2.4 billion people globally who lack these basic facilities was key to making further progress in the fight against neglected tropical diseases.

Christopher Fitzpatrick, health economist in the WHO’s department of tropical diseases, told VOA that the socioeconomic costs in terms of lost productivity and out-of-pocket health expenditures by people infected with NTDs is very high.  

“It has been calculated that for every dollar invested [in improving water and sanitation infrastructure], there will be about $30 of return to affected individuals,” he said.
…

Frog Substance Shown to Kill Human Flu Viruses

A frog found in India secretes a substance that has been shown to be highly effective at killing influenza viruses.

Researchers at Emory University in Atlanta say the secreted peptide — a subunit of a protein chain — kills dozens of flu strains that plague humans. It is effective against H1 viruses, including ones that could cause pandemics.  

Unlike humans, frogs don’t have an immune system that is capable of protecting them against pathogens like viruses and bacteria. But they do produce a slimy mucus that does the job for them.  

Researchers at Emory screened 32 peptides derived from the mucus of the frog, called Bahuvistara, and found one that was effective against all H1 viruses. The frog is found in the southern Indian province of Kerala.

Joshy Jacob, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Emory’s vaccine center and senior author of the study, describing the peptide in the journal Immunity. He and his colleagues administered the peptide to mice and then exposed them to H1 viruses. He said it protected the animals from infection.

“The beauty of this peptide is that it directly kills the virus. It’s virucidal. So if you put the peptide and the virus together, it actually destroys the virus,” Jacob said.

The researchers named the peptide urumin, after a sword blade that snaps and bends like a whip.

Jacob said the mucus is collected from the frog after exposing it to a mild electric current, which makes the amphibians secrete the antiviral agent.

Three dozen peptides

After identifying the more than three dozen immune peptides in the mucus, the protein building blocks were made synthetically in the lab.

Four emerged as antiviral candidates. But one, urumin, killed all H1 viruses.

Jacob said an flu-fighting peptide could be especially useful when vaccines are not available or when circulating viral strains become resistant to current drugs.

He said one of the next challenges would be turning the effective peptide into a pill or injection to protect humans from viruses.

“It’s like when you get a headache, you take a Motrin [a painkiller]. [The peptide] doesn’t keep you from getting [the flu] again, but it kills the virus. It’s like taking an antibiotic for bacterial infection. You take this for a flu infection,” Jacob said.

Jacob said the peptide was not effective against seasonal flu viruses that mutate rapidly. But researchers plan on testing more of the frog-derived peptides to try to find others that work against other types of influenza virus.
…