We Must Build Up Africa, Not Diminish It

BY FRANKLYN JOHNSTON

JAMAICA OBSERVER, FRIDAY, JULY 29, 2016

Africa has been much maligned. As I track a discussion across three countries, I am amazed at the illogic of educated agnostics. Europe says the Zika virus is from Africa and blacks think this a racist slur. Whites identified the virus in Uganda monkeys in 1947; humans in Nigeria in 1954 and Cameroon in 1975. Our people must learn to face reality with optimism. Where are Africa’s scientists? Africa has not distinguished itself for 3,000 years, and bad things in Africa — witchcraft, face and body scarring, FGM, and other evil had a place back then, so do not apologise or feel bad for Africa. It is the birthplace of humans, still evolving; diamonds like tennis balls, rare ores as Coltan for computers; fauna, flora. Dessicating winds cross the Atlantic with disease — Zika, ChikV, Lassa, Aids, Ebola; what else lies beneath? Conspiracy theorists aver these were created by the white man — maybe so, but we still know little about Africa from Africans.

Since 1000 BCE it is behind other continents — Asia, Europe, Americas, Australasia — and we disrespected our well-adapted hair, face, derrières; our levity ridiculed; it has no critical mass of experts to align our human evolution with history. Is there a rule that all peoples should be on the same page at the same time? Could Africa be on a different trajectory with reason? Song and dance move us, not toil or production. Should we accept that our pleasure trumps national goals and be allowed to live? It’s not on as we still want the fruits of hard work. Colonialism was good as it upset the trajectory of Africa’s languid secular evolution and forced interface with fast-paced capitalism. But bad as the master class in military, commercial, person power from its returning diaspora had a price. Africa had no curiosity for far horizons or stars, but guns, tools, consumer goods seduced them to trade their most prolific commodity — black bodies. Accidents may lead to change. Diaspora convergence on Africa — Arab from east, north and Europe from the west upset their comfort level. Darwin (

Origin of the Species) found plants adapt fast in extremes and animals become hirsute or smooth with pores as the iron rule of DNA is survive, reproduce, live! Arabs came with swords in the 7th century; Africa compromised and lived. Europeans came seven centuries later with capitalism; Africa joined for profit, military and consumer goods.

Africa is extraordinarily diverse and beautiful but lacks a portable faith, military might or resolve when faced with white men who left family and sailed unknown seas to get rich. The role of Indians and Arabs in Africa’s prehistory was a leisurely trade in blacks for domestic servitude over millennia; Atlantic slavery was intense, brutal over two centuries to provide labour for cutting-edge sugar works in the West Indies. More Africans were sold via trans-Sahara and the Indian Ocean than Atlantic slave trade, but who cares? In Africa, life was cheap in 1000 BCE, in 1600 CE and still is today. Millions of kids have been orphaned by Aids, Ebola and Lassa. Tribal wars are now raised by teens and supported by transactional sex, but who cares? Yet Africa should not be disrespected as there are reasons; it was not ready when the ancient diaspora returned to make deals. The real Roots is not yet written. The volumes of McIlwaine’s Africa Bibliography shows Africans are not writing history, so we may never know their side.

Humans of red, brown, white skins, originated in Africa — the world is African. Over millennia they trekked to icy lands; pigmentation adapted, they innovated and those remaining stagnated. Indians and Arabs did not go far and returned to Africa centuries later to buy people. Those who went far north to Europe adapted to punishing environments and went back to Africa in the 16th century seeking labour to make sugar in the West Indies. They had no recall of ancestors. Evolution is slow, and those who remained had no pressure to change as Sahara slave trades were unhurried and fitted the culture. The Atlantic trade was revolutionary as with greed for guns, beads, and mirrors, a devilish pact between Europeans and Africans was struck with native leaders. Pressured by shareholders for profit, bankers for interest, insurers for premiums on ships and mutinous seamen for pay, the returnees had a purpose. Africa was clueless. Trade meant Africa had modernity without effort. Sounds familiar? Export slavery was revolutionary in the 17th century. It ripped young and old, men and women into a capitalist vortex by the greed of their leaders. Might it have been different? Yes! But in life we play the cards dealt. Would it have spawned modern science, a global religion and defined nation states? There is no sign of curiosity or desire. Romantic West Indians like to conflate Egypt with sub-Sahara Africa. The insecure seek warmth in another’s sun, but nature is ‘red in tooth and claw’ and progress moves inexorably over the unready. Modern African diasporas can’t claim American progress as black just because Obama is president — the root is not of Africa.

In pre-history, Africa was well-off compared to ice-bound continents, which had only three months to produce food to last the entire year. African trekkers up north became visionary, innovative and productive. Those who remained had no such energy and became stagnant. Africa is not a caring, diligent fatherland to its modern diasporas, but how can we help? There is wealth, conspicuous consumption; hurt, mass disease, wars and death. A modern western sector is emerging and though not as resourced, we have a burnished profile; we punch above our weight and so we can help. We must disaggregate Africa and begin to market individual nations on their strengths and flaws. The world must discuss Ghana, Nigeria as they do France, England, Spain — bespoke personalities and not mindless, disrespectful aggregation. A name denotes identity, selfhood. If someone knows your name he respects you. We must fight to make African nations differentiated and memorable. We are not rich, but we are well-branded, and African nations need a champion. As for the West, we see them as they can’t see themselves. Our duty is to put Africa on the map, one nation at a time. Africa is rising! Stay conscious!

Franklin Johnston, D Phil (Oxon) is a strategist and project manager.

Quest For Zika Vaccine Widens; Africa, Asia Deemed Vulnerable

BY STEPHANIE NEBEHAY AND DOMINIQUE VIDALON

REUTERS, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2016

CEO of Genekam Biotechnology, Sudhir Bhatia shows a test kit for the Zika virus at Genekam Biotechnology AG in Duisburg, Germany, February 2, 2016. Image: Ina Fassbender


The Zika virus could spread to Africa, Asia and southern Europe, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday, as major French drugmaker Sanofi SA and others joined the race to create a vaccine.

A day after Geneva-based WHO declared an international public health emergency due to Zika's association with the birth defect microcephaly in Brazil, the United Nations agency said it had launched a global response unit to fight the mosquito-borne virus that is spreading rapidly in Latin America.

Babies born with microcephaly have abnormally small heads and improperly developed brains.

"Most important, we need to set up surveillance sites in low- and middle-income countries so that we can detect any change in the reporting patterns of microcephaly at an early stage," Dr. Anthony Costello said in Geneva. Costello is WHO's director for maternal, child and adolescent health.

Twenty to 30 sites could be established worldwide, mainly in poor countries without robust health care systems.

The Pan American Health Organization said Zika was now spreading in 26 countries and territories in the Americas.

The virus was first identified in 1947 in rhesus monkeys in Uganda while scientists were studying yellow fever, according to the World Health Organization. It was identified in humans in 1952. Zika is spread by mosquitoes of the Aedes genus.

There is no vaccine or treatment for it.

Sanofi's announcement marked the most decisive commitment yet by a major vaccine producer to fight Zika. The company said its Sanofi Pasteur vaccines division would use its expertise in developing vaccines for similar viruses such as yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis and dengue.

"Sanofi Pasteur is responding to the global call to action to develop a Zika vaccine given the disease's rapid spread and possible medical complications," said Nicholas Jackson, research head of Sanofi Pasteur, who is leading the Zika vaccine project.

The WHO called for urgent development of better tests to detect the virus in pregnant women and newborn babies.

The new global response unit will build on lessons learned from West Africa's Ebola crisis, Costello said. The WHO was criticized for a slow reaction to the Ebola epidemic, which killed more than 10,000 people.

"The reason it's a global concern," Costello said of Zika, "is that we are worried that this could also spread back to other areas of the world where the population may not be immune."

Costello said Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that carry the Zika virus "are present ... through Africa, parts of southern Europe and many parts of Asia, particularly South Asia." Africa and Asia have the world's highest birth rates.

'GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT'

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said on Monday it was "strongly suspected but not yet scientifically proven" that Zika causes microcephaly.

Costello, a pediatrician, said WHO was drafting guidelines for pregnant women and mustering experts to work on a definition of microcephaly that would include a standardized measurement of baby heads.

"We believe the association is 'guilty until proven innocent,'" he said, referring to whether Zika causes microcephaly.

The WHO office for Southeast Asia, issued a statement urging countries in the region to "strengthen surveillance and take preventive measures against the Zika virus disease which is strongly suspected to have a causal relation with clusters of microcephaly and other neurological abnormalities."

Small biotech companies and academic institutions have plans to develop a Zika vaccine, and GlaxoSmithKline PLC has said it is concluding feasibility studies to see if its vaccine technology was suitable. And on Tuesday other companies joined the effort.

U.S. drug developer NewLink Genetics Corp, which is also developing an Ebola vaccine with Merck, said it has started a project to develop Zika treatment options.

The University of South Australia said it was working on a Zika vaccine with Australian biotech Sementis Ltd.

Experts have said a Zika vaccine for widespread use is months if not years away.

An Australian state health service said two Australians were diagnosed with the virus after returning from the Caribbean, confirming the first cases of the virus in the country this year.

Officials said mosquitoes carrying the virus had been detected at Sydney International Airport, but they said it was unlikely the virus would establish local transmission given the lack of large numbers of the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.

Brazil, which has 3,700 suspected cases of microcephaly that may be linked to Zika, is scheduled to host the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in August.

Thailand played down the threat posed by Zika, and its public health ministry said the country should not worry about the virus. Thailand has confirmed one case of it this year.

Neighboring Malaysia and Singapore have said they are at high risk for the spread of Zika if the virus turns up in those countries.

(Additional reporting by Dominique Vidalon in Paris, Ben Hirschler in London, Jane Wardell in Sydney, Amy Sawitta Lefevre in bangkok, Pedro Fonseca in Rio, Ankur Banerjee and Amrutha Penumudi in Bengaluru; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Toni Reinhold)

Uganda's Zika Forest, Birthplace Of The Zika Virus

BY BRENT SWAILS AND DAVID MCKENZIE

CNN TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2016

A well worn sign is the only indication of the start of the Zika forest, Uganda's only preserve devoted entirely to science research.

Zika Forest, Uganda (CNN) -- The turnoff into the Zika Forest is easy to miss, just a small break in the tree line along the main road between Entebbe Airport and Uganda's capital, Kampala. A worn-out sign announcing its start only comes into view after a journey down a small dirt path.

The explosive spread of the Zika virus may have caught the world by surprise, but its namesake, the forest preserve near the edge of Lake Victoria, isn't a place to just stumble on to. The researchers who have been coming here for more than a half-century come with a purpose: to study viruses and the mosquitoes that carry them.

"Every year we come across new viruses," said Julius Lutwama, lead researcher at the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI), which owns the forest. "In the last five years or so, almost each year we come across a new virus in this country."

Uganda sits in the middle of seven distinct biogeographic zones. To the east: the savannahs of Kenya and Tanzania. To the west: the Congo basin rainforest. And Lutwama credits that biodiversity for attracting the first scientists here in the 1930s.

The discovery

What began as a Rockefeller Foundation-funded yellow fever outpost in 1936 soon became a leading laboratory in the study of tropical diseases and later evolved into UVRI in 1977. At the center of all that research is the Zika Forest.

Researchers, realizing in the mid-1940s that different mosquitoes are active at different elevations, constructed a massive steel structure in the middle of the forest to conduct their yellow fever experiments. The lead in the project was a Scottish medical entomologist named Alexander Haddow.

"All of my bedtime stories revolved around my grandfather or my father's experiences growing up in East Africa. As a small child I learned about the Zika Forest, Zika virus and the tower that my grandfather built with funding from the WHO," said Andrew Haddow, Alexander's grandson, who is now a researcher working for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.

He says he tried other careers, but the choice should have been clear from the beginning.

"I read all of his papers and the papers that came out of the lab," Andrew Haddow said. "We owe our basic understanding of many arboviruses and their associated mosquito and reservoir species to them."

It was in April of 1947, while studying yellow fever, that Alexander Haddow and colleague George Dick first identified Zika virus after a fever developed in a rhesus monkey placed on a wooden platform on his recently constructed tower. Blood samples revealed an unknown virus that, as protocol dictated, was named Zika after the forest in which it was first identified.

The Spread

They still use Haddow's tower today. Just before a recent sunset, a team from UVRI pulled up to the forest edge and unloaded two large Styrofoam coolers from the back of a pickup truck. Dry ice fog poured from the coolers' edges as they assembled the mosquito traps and headed into the forest toward Haddow's Tower.

Its sides are now rusted and a few of the wooden platforms where they now hang mosquito traps are in varying states of disrepair. Scientists say surrounding construction threatens to make this small preserve even smaller and the research they used to carry out weekly has tapered off. Just like the virus that bears its name, they say, little attention has been paid to Zika Forest.

When first identified, the virus was only proven to infect monkeys. Even in the subsequent decades, when a dozen or so isolated human cases began to emerge, the symptoms were mild and Zika was never seen as a threat in Uganda.

"It was never viewed with importance," said Lutwama. "No one is interested in making a vaccine for a virus that only causes mild symptoms."

Marilyn Parsons of the Center for Infectious Disease Research says it's also hard to distinguish Zika's symptoms from other similar arboviruses.

"It was hard to quantify how much Zika infection there was and its impact, since its symptoms are quite similar to other viruses varied by the Aedes mosquitoes: dengue and chikungunya," said Parsons.

It's unclear just how long Zika has been around because some studies have found immunity in populations in Africa and Asia, perhaps due to the similarity to other viruses.

All of that changed in 2007, when the first large outbreak of Zika was reported on Yap Island in Micronesia, Haddow said. Chikungunya and West Nile followed similar courses. "West Nile circulated for at least 62 years before it emerged in New York City in 1999. The common theme of all of these viruses is that they were not widely studied and they all emerged after a long period of time to cause severe illness."

More troubling, many scientists believe the 2007 strain of Zika has mutated from the original virus found in Uganda, with increased virulence. Subsequent years saw the virus spread quickly through the Pacific islands before landing in South America and Brazil in 2015, where there's a suspected correlation to an increase in the birth defect microcephaly and other serious conditions.

'Preparing For The Next Zika Now'

Louis Mukwaya's office sits in a prime location on the UVRI campus in Entebbe. Just right of the main doors, it's a large space that somehow manages to have every surface filled with stacks of papers. He started at the institute in 1965, just a few years after Alexander Haddow would step down as its head. A picture of Haddow still hangs in his office. Next to it, a picture of Mukwaya with the younger Haddow from 2013 when he visited the research center his grandfather helped create.

"He was a very hardworking man," Mukwaya said of the elder Haddow, before turning his attention to the virus Haddow first identified all those years ago. "You know I keep reading on the Internet about Zika in Brazil and they keep using the word, 'emerging,' 'emerging' infection. We've known about it for a long time, but then even we don't know what will happen with the virus."

Mukwaya said the institute and others like it simply don't have the resources to properly study emerging viruses.

"We used to do routine collections once a week," said the renowned entomologist. "These days we don't get out nearly as much. Funding is poor, this is the problem."

Vaccine and drug development can take years, so basic research that lays the foundation is crucial, Parsons said. "This type of research could identify drug targets, vaccine antigen targets, and develop models for testing them," she added.

A climb to the top of the tower that Andrew Haddow's grandfather helped build more than a half-century ago reveals that the once remote research outpost now is entirely surrounded by Uganda's urban centers. Any new viruses discovered here will no longer be considered remote.

"The current Zika virus outbreak in South and Central America is another wake-up call that increased globalization and climate change will continue to lead to the emergence of viral pathogens," said Haddow. "We need to be preparing for the next Zika virus now."

Scientists' Path To Usable Zika Vaccine Strewn With Hurdles

REUTERS

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2016

The world is once again asking scientists and drugmakers to come up rapidly with a vaccine for a viral disease that, in the latest case, few people had heard of until a few weeks ago, and even fewer feared.

Making a shot to generate an immune response against Zika virus, which is sweeping through the Americas, shouldn’t be too hard in theory. However, producing a safe, effective and deliverable product to protect women and girls who are at risk is not easy in practice.

For a start, scientists around the world know even less about Zika than they did about the Ebola virus that caused an unprecedented epidemic in West Africa last year. Ebola, due to its deadly power, was the subject of bioterrorism research, giving at least a base for speeding up vaccine work. This time, the knowledge gap is more daunting.

There are just 30 mentions of Zika in patents, against 1,043 for Ebola and 2,551 for dengue fever, according to Thomson Reuters Derwent World Patents Index. And there have been only 108 high-profile academic papers on Zika since 2001, against more than 4,000 on Ebola, as found in the Web of Science.

Still, the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Butantan Institute in Brazil have started work on potential candidates for a Zika vaccine, and several biotech firms are in the race. They include NewLink Genetics, which helped develop the first successful Ebola vaccine with Merck & Co.

Importantly, there is now a “big gun” vaccine maker with skin in the game: Sanofi’s said on Tuesday it will launch a Zika vaccine program, a day after the World Health Organization declared the disease and its suspected links to birth defects an international health emergency.

Canadian researcher Gary Kobinger told Reuters he believes an experimental Zika shot might be able to be used on a limited emergency basis as soon as late 2016, although full regulatory approval will take years.

Ben Neuman, an expert on viruses at Britain’s University of Reading, says there are many hurdles ahead. “To be useful, a Zika vaccine would need to be effective and safe, but it’s difficult to do both,” he told Reuters. “It’s a balancing act.”

That’s because a good vaccine works by provoking the immune system into a strong response - but not enough to make a person sick - and there is no simple way to assess the right immune response for Zika, according to one drug company expert.

Zika infection is so mild in the vast majority of cases that its victims are unaware they are even infected, so this group of potential patients is unlikely to need or want immunization.

The crucial target group is women who may be pregnant, since the disease’s greatest suspected threat is the possible link to severe birth defects.
CLINICAL TRIALS

All of this makes developing and testing a vaccine highly complex, especially since pregnant women are often excluded from clinical trials until the safety of new drugs or vaccines is well-established in other population groups.

It also makes for an uncertain and potentially limited market for any Zika vaccine.

Assuming Sanofi or another company succeeds in developing one, the vaccine may be used only in teenage girls - protecting them before they are likely to become pregnant - in countries and regions where Zika-carrying mosquitoes thrive.

“It’s a public health good initiative, it’s not necessarily a commercial initiative,” said Berenberg Bank analyst Alistair Campbell. “Zika is something that has cropped up suddenly and may well dissipate, so there may not be a sustainable annual cohort of patients for vaccination.” Still, the WHO and other public health authorities will be relieved that one of the world’s top drugmakers has pledged to work on a vaccine.

GlaxoSmithKline is also investigating Zika and a spokeswoman reiterated on Tuesday it is concluding feasibility studies to see if its vaccine technology might be suitable.

Ultimately, developing vaccines is a question of priorities, as evidenced by a patchy pattern of protection against a range of mosquito-borne viruses over the past 80 years.

There was early success with the development in 1938 of the first vaccine against yellow fever, which belongs to the same virus family as Zika. More recently, drugmakers have successfully developed shots against Japanese encephalitis and dengue. The first dengue vaccine, from Sanofi, was approved in December - after 20 years’ work. Work on other mosquito-borne diseases such as West Nile fever and chikungunya is still underway.

More Than 2100 Pregnant Women Infected By Zika In Colombia

NANO NEWS

Zika Virus is transmitted through mosquitoes in South America and Central America, The Caribbean and Mexico, and it is causing major health problems for pregnant women.

Nigeria’s minister of health Isaac Adewole said the travel restriction, especially on pregnant women, will be on until the situation improves worldwide.

An emergency committee from the World Health Organization will meet February 1 to discuss the global threat from Zika, which it says could infect as many as 4 million people in the Americas this year, based on models from the spread of dengue. For that reason women who are pregnant or trying to get pregnant should avoid travel to affected countries if at all possible.

But the state Department of Public Health said, “While the association is compelling, it is not known if the increase in microcephaly cases is directly caused by Zika virus infections”.

Genetically modified mosquitoes that will help fight the Zika virus are getting urgent attention from American regulators.

On Friday, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff vowed to “win the war” against the virus, but some experts criticized her government’s response and warned the Olympics could fuel the disease’s spread.

Only 31 travelers have returned to the US with Zika virus infections since it was first detected in Brazil in May 2015. The outbreak in Brazil led to reports of Guillain-Barre syndrome and pregnant women giving birth to babies with birth defects and poor pregnancy outcomes. Health officials are fighting back with pesticides and warnings for people to remove standing water and to cover up.

In the event of a strong outbreak of the disease in Argentina, the specialist said the northeastern provinces would face the greatest risk due to their proximity to countries where the largest number of cases have been reported and because their high temperatures would allow an infected mosquito to live longer.

Child Neurologist Vanessa Van Der Linden observes the X-ray of a baby’s skull with microcephaly at the hospital Barao de Lucena in Recife, Brazil, January 26, 2016.

The mosquito-borne illness may cause birth defects.

It said men should wear condoms for 28 days after “return from a Zika transmission area” if they experience no symptoms of unexplained fever and rash. Companies and scientists are racing to develop a safe and effective vaccine for Zika, but one is not expected to be ready for months or years.