Science - Malaria Research - Big Progress - Need Money HD

26.03.2013
Next, we have a "bad news" "good news" story. The World Health Organization reports that malaria kills about 660,000 people around the world each year. The good news is the number of deaths has dropped 30 percent over the past 10 years because of progress in treatment and prevention. The aid group Doctors Without Borders is providing the latest drugs to rural medical centers in Mali. In some areas, the infection rate dropped 65 percent in only a week. One mother of three young children says she saw a fast improvement in their health. She says her children often had higher than normal body temperatures in the past. But with the new medicines, they are much improved. The World Health Organization fears that there will not be enough money to keep this kind of medical program operating. In 2011, international donors offered more than two billion dollars to fight malaria. That is less than half of what the WHO says is needed each year. Some of the money goes for simple, but effective tools. Sir Brian Greenwood is with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "One of those is the humble bed net which people have been using for hundreds of years. But the relatively new advance has been in treating the nets with insecticide. Now, the insecticide is actually incorporated into the material." The bed nets and insecticide products keep mosquitos from biting people while they sleep. Malaria is caused by small organisms carried by the mosquito. Over time, these parasites have begun to develop resistance to some anti-malarial drugs. Professor Greenwood says he has seen this in Cambodia, and thinks the same thing is happening in other Southeast Asian countries. "Fortunately, not yet in Africa. But it would be a disaster if those parasites got loose in Africa, and our main treatment was failing again, like it did with chloroquin." Researchers say it is important for donors to continue to provide money for treatment. At this time, there is no drug that can keep people from becoming infected. http://learningenglish.voanews.com/content/new-vaccine-shrinks-head-and-neck-cancers/1621465.html

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