The atlas  is important for several reasons. Mapping the burden of disease is a critical first step to control and elimination. Without knowing how many are affected, and where the disease hotspots are located, health experts trying to tackle these diseases are largely aiming in the dark.

For many years, this is what researchers fighting neglected diseases have had to do. National reporting on the burden of diseases such as African sleeping sickness or lymphatic filiariasis has been patchy at best, largely because of weak surveillance systems or problems with diagnosis. While there have been large-scale mapping efforts for schistosomiasis and onchocerciasis, the information they contain is now fairly outdated.

The atlas will exploit new methods of data-capture, in which data is sent as soon as it has been collected to a central database via laptops or other mobile technologies. GIS (geographical information systems) frameworks allow this disease data to be meshed with environmental data on climate variability and weather patterns, which are key in the transmission of infectious neglected diseases.

The ease with which data can now be captured and organised on a macro level has been at the heart of other mapping efforts such as new global maps for malaria (see Q&A with Simon Hay on mapping malaria, http://www.tropika.net/svc/specials/mim2009/profiles/Q_A_Hay). These maps have offered malaria researchers an opportunity to better target their efforts.

The world is finally seeing substantial political will to fight neglected diseases. The Obama administration, for example, is expected to release US$100 million a year to fight these diseases under its new Global Health Initiative. The atlas for helminth infection is a start - neglected disease researchers must now pool their efforts to create more atlases of neglected diseases.

The awards, renewable for six years, are intended to establish international centres of excellence for malaria research in regions where malaria is endemic, including parts of Africa, Asia, the Pacific islands and Latin America.

Further details here.

Professor Harries describes three aspects of coordination: for people living with HIV, for people with TB, establishing mechanisms for collaboration between TB and HIV programmes.

[Also on Citizen News, a brief article makes the case for the use of isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) to prevent latent TB developing into the active form of the disease.]

The Colombian Institute of Tropical Medicine “Antonio Roldan Betancourt” ICMT-CES is a center of excellence in research, nonprofit, described by COLCIENCIAS full exaltation granted by that organization: Group A1 “Institution of Excellence in research.”

It was founded in 1989 as a Joint Participation Corporation for purposes of public and social interest. Currently the Institute has an operating headquarters in the CES University facilities in the town of Sabaneta and another office located in Apartado - Antioquia.

The ICMT is managed by the University of Medellín CES, an institution renowned for the quality of its academic programs and unconditional support to the development of research and science, as well as the provision of services, consulting and advisory services in the Colombian health sector and Latin America.

ICMT-CES Mission Working continuously for the development of science, through research and academic training of health professionals, with the aim to contribute actively in improving the health of the citizens.

Our Institute has international recognition, thanks to the work associated with other research institutions and the many publications of scientific contribution.

ICMT-CES focuses its research activities in all areas of Tropical Medicine, based on epidemiology and immunology of infectious diseases, supported by the most advanced techniques of molecular biology for diagnosis. They stand out for their development research in progress: leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, intestinal parasites, salmonellosis, leprosy, tuberculosis, malaria, cysticercosis, dengue, leptospirosis, diagnostic methods, medical entomology and brucellosis.

A public health physician, Dr Mistry was a founding member and former vice president of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GBC), and brings extensive experience in global health policy and programming.

The Global Network, a major programme of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, is an advocacy and resource mobilization initiative dedicated to eliminating the most common disabling, disfiguring and deadly neglected tropical diseases. Further details of Dr Mistry’s appointment are available in a press release.

According to principal investigator Randall A. Kramer, professor of environmental economics at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment at the DGHI, the team will conduct experiments in 24 villages in the Mvomero district of Tanzania to assess the effectiveness of different intervention strategies individually and in combination.

Using the findings from these studies, the Duke team will refine a new tool used to improve the effectiveness and safety of malaria control strategies in different settings worldwide. Designed by Duke researchers in 2007, the Malaria Decision Analysis Support Tool (MDAST) was developed to address the controversial re-introduction of DDT in several East African countries by assessing the economic, environmental and human health risks with alternative strategies for managing malaria (1).

In the Tanzania studies, villages will be randomly assigned to receive one of four disease-control strategies: no intervention; treatment with mosquito-larvicides; rapid diagnostic testing for malaria by health workers; or both larviciding and rapid diagnostic testing.

“The central objective is to improve malaria control through an implementation science approach that integrates health delivery and decision support modelling to promote joint optimization of vector control and disease management strategies,” says Kramer.

Marie Lynn Miranda, associate professor of environmental sciences and policy and director of the Children’s Environmental Health initiative at the Nicholas School, is Kramer’s co-principal investigator on the new grant. Their team includes collaborators from Duke University, the University of Pretoria in South Africa, and the National Institute for Medical Research in Tanzania.

References
1. Beerbohm, E. A pilot expert elicitation to assess the risks of malaria vector control strategies in East Africa.  Unpublished.

Willingham says that, in total, there are nine TB vaccines at different stages of development around the world. However, she estimates that it will be 2020 before there is one that is ready for use.

An article from the Citizen News service, quotes experts in Indonesia and India who want to see more attention paid to paediatric TB, which often goes undiagnosed (due to technical issues as well as a lack of resources). They say that more information is needed as to how common the condition is in both HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected children. Greater efforts are needed to bring TB treatment to the children who need it.

The researchers introduced a gene that affected the insect’s gut in such a way that the malaria parasite could not develop there. They reduced the number of infected mosquitoes by 60–99%. They report their work, in which they used the mosquito Anopheles stephensi, in PLoS Pathogens [1].

The study is discussed in BBC News, where researcher Professor Michael Riehle of the University of Arizona explains that, while the ultimate goal is to introduce malaria-resistant mosquitoes into the environment: “Before we do this, we have to somehow give the mosquitoes a competitive advantage over the disease-carrying insects”. The introduction of the gene into the main mosquito species responsible for malaria transmission (such as Anopheles gambiae) will also be necessary. There is therefore some way to go before GM mosquitoes are used in control programmes. Nevertheless, it is currently an exciting area of research.

Reference
1. Corby-Harris V, Drexler A, Watkins de Jong L, Antonova Y, Pakpour N, et al. (2010) Activation of Akt Signaling Reduces the Prevalence and Intensity of Malaria Parasite Infection and Lifespan in Anopheles stephensi Mosquitoes. PLoS Pathog 6(7). Accessible online: http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.1001003.