U.S., Nigeria plan malaria vector survey in six states

• Thursday, 06 February 2014 00:00
• Written by Chukwuma Muanya

• Category: Science
• Hits: 95
•  Print 
• Email

AS part of efforts geared towards elimination of malaria from the country, a United States-sponsored Malaria Initiative in collaboration with the National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP) are set to conduct entomological surveillance in six states of the federation.

  Entomological surveillance is used to determine changes in the geographical distribution and density of the vector, evaluate programmes, obtain relative measurements of the vector population over time and facilitate appropriate and timely decisions regarding interventions.

  Africa Indoor Residual Spraying Project (AIRS), a three-year award funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the US Presidents’ Malaria Initiative (PMI) had in 2011 introduced and piloted a model for an Indoor Residual Spray (IRS) programme at a state/local government area level in two local government areas (LGAs) of Nasarawa State namely Nasarawa Eggon and Doma. 

  However, Country Technical Manager, Abt Associates/USAID/PMI-AIRS Project, Nigeria, Dr. Petrus Inyama, at a Principal Investigators and Entomology Technicians Training organised, last week, in Abuja in collaboration with NMEP said AIRS Nigeria has, in 2014, transited from full IRS implementation to entomological surveillance in six sentinel sites out of the 18 sentinel sites proposed by NMEP, which are domiciled in universities and research institutes. 

  Inyama who stood in for the Regional Operations Manager Dr. Nduka Iwuchukwu, said that the sites included Epe in Lagos State, Kirikashama in Jigawa State, Shendam/Barkin Ladi in Plateau State, Enugu in Enugu State, Ikwere in Rivers State and Nararawa Eggon/Doma in Nasarawa State. 

  Inyama said that the project would capture standard entomological indicators in all the six sentinel sites. “These would be compared by the type of malaria control interventions and coverage across the geopolitical and ecological zones of the country,” he said. 

  Inyama said the security challenges in the northeast made the site in that area to be put on hold. “Through activities planned for 2014, information will be collected to help the NMEP in making data-driven decisions for programming vector control activities in Nigeria,” he said. 

  Inyama further stated: “In furtherance to PMI’s goal of supporting NMCP in the area of capacity building and systems strengthening, AIRS Nigeria has organized this training to showcase best practices in malaria vector surveillance which includes evaluating the density of vectors in IRS-targeted and non- IRS targeted areas, the indoor/outdoor, resting/biting behavior of the vectors and resistance status of malaria vectors in the selected areas.

  “I am made to understand that in Nigeria, there is no comprehensive picture of the Anopheline fauna in general and the malaria vectors in particular. In order to create a broad body of knowledge on malaria vectors, the PMI is asking the AIRS Nigeria project to expand entomological surveillance work to six sentinel sites, strategically selected to represent all of the geopolitical zones of the country.”

  He said that the PMI wished to continue to support NMEP in this important area of entomological surveillance and other strategic areas of need because of her conviction that the quest towards malaria elimination in Nigeria would not be successful without a concerted and coordinated vector control efforts.  

  To consolidate on the above-mentioned gains of PMI’s support to NMEP, Inyama enjoined participants to be committed to this training and resolve to carry out the responsibilities bestowed on them at the various sentinel sites. “We believe that with the correct political will and the commitment of various stakeholders, we will win the fight against malaria.” 

  National Coordinator, NMEP, Dr. Nnenna Ezeigwe, who declared open the workshop, called on other esteemed Partners of the Programme to come on board this giant train as it is a collective responsibility to continue to sustain the efforts and huge resources already committed to this fight against malaria and its burden in Nigeria and the African region in general.

  Ezeigwe, who was represented by Dr. Joe Akila, said that the federal government in collaboration with the other tiers of government and the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) partners is committing huge resources to ensure the actualization of the current malaria elimination goal. 

  “If these efforts must yield the expected goal, the importance of malaria vector surveillance cannot be over emphasized. Therefore, I implore all our esteemed partners to join this effort aimed at creating a structure, which will enable an effective tracking of the huge resource inputs against the expected outcomes,” she said.  

  Dr. David Hoel of CDC Atlanta Georgia who represented USAID stressed the need for vector control against malaria in Nigeria. He said that the USAID was ready to support the sentinel sites set up by NMEP as Nigeria moves towards malaria elimination. 

  Heoel advocated for insecticide rotation in vector control interventions as the continuous use of pyrethroids which is one of the World Health Organisation Pesticide Evaluation Scheme (WHOPES) – approved insecticides by both agricultural and public health sectors may lead to the loss of susceptibility of the insecticides due to resistance.

  Speaking on behalf of the Malaria Partners, the Director of Community Vision Initiative Dr. Chioma Amajoh (popularly called Mama Malaria) who is also the immediate past National Coordinator of NMEP, appreciated the PMI | AIRS Nigeria for demonstrating a model IRS in Nigeria and emphasized that IRS is not expensive contrary to global thoughts and perception since the equipment is procured once at the start of the exercise. 

  Amajoh commended the NMEP for their fight to take Nigeria towards malaria elimination and the Federal Government for initiating the Integrated Test, Treat and larviciding (ITTL) programme which is about to take off stressing that proper implementation of the programme across the nation will eventually lead to the total elimination and eventual eradication of malaria in Nigeria. 

  She said: “If we build team spirit for maximum output, more partners will be attracted towards the fight against malaria. Furthermore, she praised the Principal Investigators for their hard work and commitment but advocated for the publication research findings for the world to know.”

  Principal Investigator for Jigawa Sentinel site, Dr. Abdulsalami Yayo, who spoke on behalf of his colleagues, said that resistance by both parasites and vectors has limited the successes achieved in malaria control stressing that governments and agencies should direct resources aright. 

  Yayo said that the training offered the opportunity to address the problem of malaria squarely as the Principal Investigators were committed to the success of the programme not just because of the money but because of humanity.

  Head of Department, Vector Control Unit of the Nigeria Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), Yaba, Lagos, who is also one of the Principal Investigators, thanked the PMI for supporting the sentinel sites and promised good data that anybody can be proud of in the world. He urged the NMEP to use the personnel at the training as a network for Vector Surveillance in Nigeria.

  Certificates were awarded to participants at the end of the training. 

  Other dignitaries at the training include Dr. Uwem Inyang, the Malaria Programme Officer, USAID Mission, Abuja, Prof. Greg Ike Anyanwu, Prof. Georgina Mwansat, Dr. Ebere Nwabueze and Mr. Ogbonnaya Nwokocha, Assistant Director IRS at NMEP.

  Inyama further explained: “The need for capacity building of health workers at all levels on standard protocols and techniques that would meet national and international performance standards in malaria control cannot be overemphasized. Failure to use the right tools to fight malaria as approved by the WHO, PMI, and other accredited authorities, would result invariably in the resources deployed towards this fight amounting to nothing but waste. To this end, we are glad to gather Principal Investigators and Technicians for this strategic training exercise that will be facilitated by a carefully selected team of experienced Vector Control experts in Nigeria.

  Before I go further, it is pertinent to take us memory lane. This exercise is anchored by the Africa IRS project, Nigeria, a President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI)/USAID funded project handled by Abt Associates Inc; whose mandate has been to implement among others, a demonstration IRS project in Nigeria in two local government areas of Nasarawa state (Doma and Nasarawa Eggon). I wish to announce that the project, which was concluded in December last year, was successfully implemented in a way consistent with the expectations and stipulations of PMI, of course in conjunction and collaboration with the National malaria Elimination Program, the Nasarawa State Ministry of Health, the Federal Ministry of Environment, the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency and the Doma and Nasarawa Eggon Local Government Area Councils, etc.

  “The project successfully concluded two spray cycles in a relatively low transmission zone in North Central Nigeria, the first being in April to May 2012, and the last in April to May, 2013. The 2013 cycle, which was very successful, built on the experiences and lessons learnt from the 2012 campaign. The exercise methodically demonstrated improvements in the overall operationalisation of the campaign in the areas of M&E, environmental compliance, logistics management, recruitment and training of spray personnel with resultant improvement in spray techniques, enhanced BCC strategies; and in entomology, utilized an in-house insectary in Keffi to ensure the supply of adequate numbers of susceptible Anopheles gambiae ss (Kisumu) and wild strains of mosquitoes for improved entomological monitoring and quality assurance.”

  He said that the following were concomitant achievements in last year’s spray cycle, which lasted for 33 days: 652 spray operations personnel (84 per cent male; 16 per cent female) trained; A total of 62,592 structures sprayed out of 64,191 structures found by the spray operators, representing 97.5 per cent spray coverage and A total population of 346,798, which included 16,733 pregnant women and 67,204 children under age five were protected.

  Inyama added: “A very robust and standardized entomological monitoring based on best practices was carried out; the result revealed the diverse species of Anopheles mosquitoes sustaining the transmission of malaria in Nasarawa State as well as the resistance status of local mosquitoes in the intervention areas. Quality assurance and cone bioassay tests showed that the insecticide deployed (Deltamethrin) was effective against both susceptible and local mosquitoes. This corroborates the evidence of improved strategies, standard and quality deployment of personnel and materials.”

“AIRS Nigeria collaborated with the Nasarawa State University Keffi by successfully establishing a standard insectary where susceptible strains of Anopheles gambiae s.s. (Kisumu) have been raised for the first time in North Central Nigeria.”

Mosquito-borne illness that makes people bend over in pain likely on way to U.S.

A mosquito-borne illness that makes its victims stoop over in intense pain has made its way from Africa to the Caribbean and likely will reach the U.S. soon, scientists have found.

The first case of chikungunya fever in the Western Hemisphere was confirmed on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin in October, and by December 48 cases had been confirmed. In the weeks since more than 1,000 cases have been reported in the islands as it inches closer to the U.S., Scientific American reports.
The viral illness is rarely fatal, but it causes fever, headaches and severe joint pain for about a week.
The disease was first seen in Tanzania in 1953 and has since been seen in epidemics in Africa, Asia and parts of Europe. There is no specific treatment for the illness, though its symptoms can be lessened through treatment, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Officials with the CDC told Scientific American that the disease likely will reach the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico and, eventually, the continental U.S.

Mosquito Sperm Follow Their “Noses” to an Egg

Posted by Guest Blogger in Weird & Wild on February 7, 2014

A female mosquito readies herself for a blood meal. Photograph by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/PHIL/Corbis

Insects are plenty strange: Certain individuals eat their mates, doting parents bury offspring with carcasses, and sometimes dinner means sucking liquefied organs through a straw.

Now it gets even weirder. Researchers have found that mosquito sperm contain proteins that enable them to smell their way to a waiting egg.

Many insects have these proteins—known as odorant receptors—on their sperm, as well as in their antennae, where they use them to sniff out dinner. But researchers weren’t sure what these odor proteins did when they appeared on sperm.

A new study—published online February 3 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—shows that the proteins on the sperm cells of Anopheles gambiae, the mosquito that carries malaria, respond to chemical cues and tell the sperm when it’s time to get a move on. (See “Nazi Scientists May Have Plotted Malaria Mosquito Warfare.”)

“Female [mosquitoes] mate only once in their life,” says researcher Laurence Zweibel of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. And they store that sperm for the rest of their lives in special organs, he explains. Female mosquitoes use only some of the sperm each time they have a blood meal to create an egg.

“[Then] the sperm have to go from this inactive to active state,” says Zweibel. “You don’t want the sperm, which has a limited amount of fuel in the tank, to be beating its tail unnecessarily without any egg around. You need to have a mechanism where you only turn on the engine of the car when you’re getting ready to start the race.”

That mechanism, it turns out, are these odorant receptor proteins, which Zweibel and his team showed cause a strong response in the sperm to chemicals from a female mosquito’s ovaries. It’s the first time these proteins have been shown to have a function outside of the sensory system in insects.

Get a Move On

Not only do the sperm use their sense of smell as an on-off switch, they may also be able to follow their “noses” to the egg. “The female produces these signals to say to the sperm, ‘OK, I need some of you guys to get your act together,’” Zweibel explains. The researcher and his team also believe those chemical signals tell the sperm where to go—a kind of “here I am, come get me” signal, he says.

Zweibel’s lab colleagues stumbled on this mechanism during their many years of trying to develop mosquito repellents by disrupting an adult mosquito’s sense of smell. “Not to turn it off,” he says, “but to turn it hyper on.” He likened the method to overwhelming a human by shouting at her at the top of his lungs. “I call it the New York system,” the native New Yorker added. (See“New Mosquito Repellant Made, ‘Better Than Anything Else.’”)

A similar technique could render mosquitoes sterile by overwhelming the odor receptors on their sperm. “These processes have to be done at the right time in the right amount to provide this activation. Too much, too little, or at the wrong time” could make successful mosquito reproduction impossible, Zweibel says.

Finally, the study could have implications beyond just the malaria mosquito. Odor receptors have been found on insect sperm belonging to bugs of all kinds. Now that researchers know a mosquito sperm can “smell,” Zweibel thinks it’s just a matter of time before scientists find similar mechanisms on other species’ sperm.

“We’re looking at every insect we can get our hands on,” the researcher says. “We’ve looked in ants, bees, and we see [these proteins] all over the place.”

—Rachel Kaufman

Hundreds of Thousands of Mosquitos below ground

James Logan, a biologist at the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine also tried leeches and is thinking about maggot therapy
Interview by Josh Davis

• The Observer, Sunday 1 December 2013
• Jump to comments (10)

James Logan gets up close with mosquitos at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Observer

A lot of people don't realise that just one metre below your feet walking along Gower Street or Malet Street in London, you have thousands upon thousands of very hungry, potentially dangerous insects.

In the basement we have our insectary colonies where we keep lots of different species of mosquitoes, found in all parts of the world. None of them are infected with malaria, but they are in very high numbers. We also have bed bugs, house dust mites, cockroaches, and house flies, among other insects.

I'm a senior lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where my speciality is medical entomology. I run a research group where we investigate new ways to control diseases spread by insects, such as malaria, dengue fever and other parasites. Out of pure interest – and because I like self-experimenting – I gave myselfhookworms.

Hook worm. Photograph: Sebastian Kaulitzki/Alamy

Hookworms are known to have surprising positive effects on your body. They modify the immune system, although this is a fine balance because if they modulate it too much you become ill, and if they don't modulate it enough, you'd get rid of them. But by suppressing the immune system, they have been shown to have a beneficial effect on diseases such as Crohn's, irritable bowel syndrome, asthma, and there's even a clinical trial looking at effects onMS. Maybe if we understand the science of how these worms do this, we could develop a drug which could mimic them.

For some years I've had a food allergy where I can't eat bread without feeling ill. So partly I just wanted to find out if the rumours were true and whether the worms would help me, but we also filmed them using a special camera which is usually used to look for skin cancer.

It's basically an ultrasound machine which allowed us to visualise a section through the skin, so we were able to see how the worms entered my arm, and moved through the layers. It was previously unknown how long they took to penetrate the skin, and it was thought that perhaps they hang around in the layers of the skin for some time.

When the worms enter the body they're microscopic. Normally you get them by walking around barefoot in infected areas, which is why children get them quite a lot in developing countries because they are often sitting on the ground. In the lab, we put them on to my arm in a droplet of water.

In no time at all, they started burrowing in, far quicker than anybody would have thought. While they were burrowing I could feel very slight nips. Using the camera we could see them move through the skin, and again, that happened much faster than people had thought, which was a new finding.

Then they make this incredible journey through the body. They go in the bloodstream, through the heart, to eventually burst through the lungs. You develop a bit of a cough, so you hack them up then you swallow them into your stomach. I kept thinking: "Am I coughing up worms?"

When they reach the stomach they develop into adults, where they hook on to the gut wall and suck your blood. They produce saliva which is injected into the bloodstream, which is what modulates the immune system so that you don't get rid of them.

Remarkably, the hookworm therapy actually worked. I had a good few weeks of scoffing pizza and garlic bread, which was just brilliant, but after about four weeks I started to develop really severe stomach pains. It was horrible, excruciating, and reached the point where I was unable sleep. It was making me feel ill and dizzy, and at one point I was on the verge of giving up and saying this is just enough.

A couple of days later I swallowed a pill-sized camera, so we were able to see the hookworms in place. But we were also able to see their path of destruction. There were lots of round, red wounds on the inside of my stomach wall in the shape of their mouth parts where they had been attached. This worried me, because some of them looked like ulcers. The specialist gastroenterologist we were speaking to said that if I went to him with all these symptoms, he'd be incredibly concerned.

Despite this, I actually spent a long time debating whether or not to get rid of them. I thought the likelihood was that this will all settle down eventually, my body will adjust and it will go back to how it should be – meaning I could continue to eat bread. However, my wife was unconvinced. She didn't really like the thought of sleeping in a bed beside somebody infested with worms. So after two months of being infected, I took the pill and got rid of them. I probably would do it again, but there would have to be a good reason, such as if there was a new aspect to hookworm biology that we didn't know about, or if I decided I wanted to eat bread again.

Leech therapy. Photograph: Hans-Joachim Schneider/Alamy

Since the hookworms, I've also tried leech therapy to help cure a muscle injury. There's anecdotal evidence that leeches can help by stimulating the flow of blood through the muscle, helping it to heal. So I gave it a go when after four months of physio a quad injury wasn't getting any better. I let three leeches feed on my leg for about an hour, until they were the size of big sausages, full of blood. Amazingly, about a week later my injury had disappeared. Whether it was coincidence or not, I don't know, but it certainly raises the possibility.

The next thing I want to experience is maggot therapy. I want to know what it's like, whether you can feel it, and how effective it actually is. I'm not sure how that'll work out.