New Malaria-Carrying Mosquito Found in Cameroon


By Tansa Musa

YAOUNDE (Reuters) - A new form of mosquito carrying the parasite responsible for the most deadly form of malaria, Africa's biggest killer alongside HIV/AIDS, has been discovered in a village in southern Cameroon, researchers say.


Discovery of the hitherto-unknown variety, provisionally dubbed "Oveng Form" after the village where it was found, is likely to make the fight against the malaria in Cameroon even more difficult, researchers say, although more research is needed.


It joins four other species already known in the central African country, all of them resistant to common anti-malaria drugs.


A team of French and Cameroonian scientists made the discovery after collecting samples of Anopheles mosquitoes from five localities including Oveng village -- which lies between two rivers near the border with Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.


"It is then that we discovered that the samples from Oveng village were different from existing varieties in terms of morphology and behavior," Parfait Herman Awono-Ambene, one of the scientists who carried out the research, told Reuters on Friday.


Mosquitoes from the Anopheles group transmit malaria -- which kills roughly 3,000 people every day -- to humans along rivers in Africa. The results of the study were published in the July issue of the Journal of Medical Entomology.


"The interesting thing about Oveng Form is that it is hardly found inside houses though it bites human beings just like others and contains the malaria-carrying agent Plasmodium falciparum," Awono-Ambene said, referring to the most life-threatening form of the disease.


He said the mosquito found in Oveng becomes very active at dusk, feeding on people who live near or along the banks of the two rivers.


More research will need to be carried out to determine whether this variety is only present in Oveng village, but Awono-Ambene said the mosquito was also likely to exist in neighboring Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.


Malaria costs Africa around $12 billion a year in lost income.


In Cameroon, it represents 35 to 40 percent of deaths in hospitals and is responsible for 40 percent of deaths among children aged between zero and five.


The country's public health authorities are promoting the use of impregnated nets to fight the disease, but adequate nets are not always easily available and at 3,500 CFA francs ($6.5) they are often too expensive for the average household.

Believe it.
JCN

Yeah believe it. Malaria is the most common infectious disease in the world. It is also probably responsible for the most deaths due to infectious disease in the world, because many of the deaths, in endemic areas, which are attributed to AIDS are actually due to complications of Malaria in HIV positive individuals. When you travel in endemic areas, don't take this disease lightly.

Geronimo

So there is a loss of over a million people a year just around the river areas?

Hi Ann - I thought I had read about this before and this is from http://www.theglobalfund.org/en/about/fighting/malaria/
Of course, anyone can print anything whether it's true or not, but I have also read these statistics elsewhere.

"Malaria, one of the world's most common and serious tropical diseases, is a protozoal infection transmitted to humans by mosquitoes.[1]

Each year, malaria causes at least one million deaths and an additional 300 to 500 million clinical cases, the majority of which occur in the world's poorest countries.

More than 41% of the world's population is at risk of acquiring malaria, and the proportion increases yearly due to deteriorating health systems, growing drug and insecticide resistance, climate change, and war.

High-risk groups include children, pregnant women, travelers, refugees, displaced persons, and labourers entering endemic areas.[2]

Impact by Region
Malaria is prevalent in a total of 105 countries and territories: 45 countries in WHO's African Region, 21 in WHO's Americas Region, 6 in WHO's European Region, 14 in WHO's Eastern Mediterranean Region, 9 in WHO's South East Asia Region, and 10 in WHO's Western Pacific Region.[3]

90% of malaria deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa. Approximately 3,000 people die from malaria each day in this region, most of them children.[4]"

Wow, I really did not know so many perished daily from Malaria. You would think such statistics would show a decline in human population but that does not seem to be the case.

Ann,

I think this is a very conservative number of the people killed by malaria worldwide.

Remember, an awful lot of people die in Asia from malaria too.

Kathi, Thanks for the info. As having a father who caught malaria over in Africa and survived I know the first hand effects of this disease. Even if you do survive it is with you for the rest of your life and there are lifetime dibilatating effects that this disease has. No one should take it lightly.>John