Diseases and Cures Travel the Globe

Relatives and teachers need to keep up with findings about diseases in order to protect children. On the other hand, older students can begin to see career opportunities for themselves in medical and medical-related fields, including in the area of bioethics.

Tropical Diseases

Africa is breaking the grip of tropical diseases thanks to a coalition of aid agencies, pharmaceutical companies, and charities that formed Uniting to Combat Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDS). Health programs in individual countries and radio programs where experts and patients answer questions about treatments and dispel misconceptions also do their part.
     In Sierra Leone, for example, a country once ravished by Ebola, health workers visit villages once a year to provide everyone at risk with drugs for four diseases:

• Elephantiases (lymphatic filariasis). Microscopic worms infest the body and cause extreme irreversible swelling and damage.
• River blindness (onchocerciasis). Blindness caused by black fly bites and worms infecting the body.
• Snail fever (schistosomiasis). Parasitic worm infection that destroys kidneys and the liver.
• (Helminths) Roundworms in soil cause infections that stunt growth and physical development.

By treating all family members with all four drugs at once, Sierra Leone saves money on multiple visits and prevents families from passing diseases to one another.

     Mosquitoes continue to be the ones that transmit malaria, dengue fever, and Zika in tropical areas. In warm, wet weather, they mature faster and become infectious sooner. But even in warm, dry conditions, they find ways to survive underground in storm drains and sewers. In Singapore on a small scale, Trendwatching.com reports innovative pots, decorated with paint infused with the non-toxic mosquito repellent, permethrin, are used to kill mosquitoes trying to survive in water collected in plant pots. (Use keywords, mosquitoes, malaria, dengue, and Zika, to find earlier posts on these subjects.)

Polio

News that polio is staging a comeback in some parts of the world recalls disturbing memories from my childhood. Paralysis from polio required President Franklin Roosevelt to wear leg braces, a neighbor to live in an iron lung, and a playmate to compensate for her withered left arm. When Jonas Salk's polio vaccine became available in the 1960s, we all rushed to take it on sugar cubes.
     Normally, the polio vaccine that carries a live, weakened virus breeds in the recipient's intestines and enters the bloodstream to cause a lifelong protective immune response. But occasionally, once in every 17 million vaccinations, the weakened virus mutates and causes a new strain that can live in poop for six to eight weeks following an innoculation. In countries that lack clean water, adequate toilets, and treatment for sewage, polio is transmitted by drinking water carrying the mutated virus. That seems to be what has happened to cause cases of polio in Papua New Guinea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria.

HIV/AIDS and STDs

Ever since the International AIDS Society (IAS) established a 90-90-90 goal in 2014, countries have aimed to make sure 90% of their population knows they have the disease, 90% of those are taking antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), and virus levels in 90% taking ARVs are negligible. Worldwide, only a 75-79-81 goal is reached.
      In less developed countries, HIV is combated by circumcising male foreskins to remove HIV-breeding cells and by paying school tuition for girls who are less susceptible to exchanging sex for food and other benefits, if they have employable skills. In all countries, HIV prevention responds to a combination of two ARVs, tenofovir and emtricitabine found in Truvada. Prevention still depends on those at risk coming forward and governments willing to help pay for treatment.
     After being raised and educated in Europe, Dr. Agnes Binagwano began returning to Rwanda with suitcases filled with medical supplies. Working with the government, she began an HIV program and trained health workers to visit villagers in their homes. To build trust for Rwanda's health care program, villagers chose the health workers who care for them.Once the country with the worst child mortality rate, 97% of Rwanda's infants now are vaccinated. The country where genocide killed nearly one million in 1994 also has the University of Global Health Equity in Kigali, rural health centers, and a nationwide health insurance program.
     Still a problem, ARVs give gay and bisexual men a false impression that these drugs prevent all sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). And birth control pills and other forms of female contraception give heterosexual couples the false impression male partners need not use condoms. Consequently, syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhoea infections all are on the rise from unprotected sex. At the same time, testing has been hit by cuts in funding for preventive education, local health departments, and confidential clinics that cater to adolescents.

Gene Editing

Which human cells the CRISPR-Cas9 technique edits and the changes made promise to treat diseases when engineered cells return to a patient's body. While unintended consequences of CRISPR-Cas9 editing to improve agricultural crops are less of a concern, the studies that find some forms of CRISPR-Cas9 editing delete or rearrange strings of DNA, affect non-targeted genes, and might cause cancer in humans motivate the search for technological techniques that produce only intended results.
     Genetic engineering capable of removing hereditary predispositions to cancer would, of course,be valuable. Editing into humans destructive hereditary traits passed along to future generations would not.
     Based on the way viruses can penetrate bacteria cells and destroy their defenses, CRISPR editing also is involved in the search for a way to k(ll superbugs resistant to antibiotics. (Use the keywords, antibiotics and CRISPR, to see earlier posts on these subjects.)

Cellphone Radiation

Research continues to study the danger of cellphone radiation from phones and antennas. Emissions from decaying lithium batteries, which remind me of those from black holes, also seem to indicate possible health risks. Keep an eye on findings about brain damage and memory loss from long term studies of new 5G technology. 

Teens Find Drought and Zika Remedies

Entering contests and writing to potential mentors not only can help individual students jump start their own careers but these proactive efforts also can help humanity. Dr. Hongjun Song, the mentor who received a letter from the student involved in Zika virus research, observed: "Unencumbered by previous experience, high school students aren't afraid of failure and are freer to try things than graduate students or postdocs."

Help for drought-starved crops

Kiara Nirghin, the 16-year-old South African girl who won the grand prize in Google's Science Fair (googlesciencefair.com), reasoned that a superabsorbent polymer (SAP) used in diapers could help soil retain more water when drought threatens crops. To avoid the pricey, less eco-friendly acrylic acid chemicals used in current SAPs, Ms. Nirghin tried creating a SAP by applying UV light and heat to avocado and orange peels. When sprinkled on fields, her polymer, which holds 300 times its weight in liquid, provides water for crops that would otherwise die from drought.
(Kiara Nirghin is among the world's 30 most influential teens TIME magazine lists at time.com/teens2016.)

Help for studying the Zika virus

At the University of Pennsylvania's School of Engineering and Applied Science, engineers developed a $2 genetic test to detect the Zika virus immediately by using color-changing dye in a device about the size of a soda can. The process requires no electricity or extensive technical training.
     Chris Hadiono, whose parents are U.S. immigrants from Indonesia, was a high school intern at Dr. Hongjun Song's neurology lab at John Hopkins University, when he developed a bioreactor device used to determine how the Zika virus causes the abnormal brain development which results in the small heads of newborn babies, i.e. microcephly, and many more problems.
     Using 3D printing instructions from a YouTube tutorial, Hadiono created a machine with gears that keep 12 "mini-brains" floating and growing in wells, each filled with about one teaspoon of nutrient rich liquid, by constantly stirring the liquid in all the wells at the same time.
     Before Hadiono's contribution, the neural tissue of human brains, "mini-brains," already could be produced by turning human skin cells (3D printers also can create human tissue and bone) into stem cells which could be turned into the neural stem cells that became human neural brain tissue resembling the human cerebral cortex affected by the Zika virus. And a magnetic bar could continuously stir a rich nutrient broth-like medium, or liquid, that enabled "mini-brains" to float and grow in all directions. The problem was the big device required too much costly medium and could only be used once to accommodate a few experiments at a time. With Hadiono's bioreactor device, at a much lower cost, researchers can see how the Zika virus infects and kills neural stem cells in 12 different parts of a human's cerebral cortex at the same time..  With the work of another teen, maybe prevention and a cure for microcephly will not be far behind.