Malaria

Jason Rasgon wants to assure the world of one thing: His genetically modified mosquitoes do not have eyes that glow in the dark. Yes, under fluorescent bulbs, some of the mosquitoes at the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute will glow a bright red or green. When magnified, they look like space aliens. But Rasgon and colleagues say it's what you can't see that makes these bugs important: They're prototypes for a generation of genetically modified mosquitoes that could be released into the wild to help eradicate malaria.

Cordova, Alaska -- Oysterman Jim Aguiar had never had to deal with the bacterium Vibrio parahaemolyticus in his 25 years working the frigid waters of Prince William Sound. The dangerous microbe infected seafood in warmer waters, such as the Gulf of Mexico. Alaska was too cold. But the sound was gradually warming. By summer 2004, the temperature had risen just enough to poke above the crucial 59-degree mark. Cruise ship passengers who had eaten oysters were soon coming down with diarrhea, cramping and vomiting.

LOS ANGELES -- To an African woman living in a remote village, everything is precious: a cup, a pencil, a length of twine. But above all, tablets that can save a sick child's life. Most African mothers will trudge miles and wait hours in hopes of obtaining such medicine. That's why it is so dismaying that Sanofi-Aventis may soon destroy 10 million doses of the world's best malaria medicine - a drug that quickly slays lethal strains that still claim 1 million African children every year.

Kishor Gheewala has lived in the United States for more than 30 years. Throughout those years, the 63-year-old native of Bombay (now Mumbai), had made so many trips home to India that he was confident he knew everything that he needed to take with him and everything he needed to look out for once he arrived. In the past few years, however, he has run into an unwelcome surprise - dysentery. Dysentery is caused by bacteria and spread through contaminated food and water. Gheewala has had two bouts with the ailment, once in 1998 and again this year.

MAPHUNGWANE, Swaziland -- Men in blue coveralls and white surgical masks began their annual trek into the countryside here last week. Methodically, they sprayed one home after another with a chemical most Americans probably thought disappeared from use long ago: DDT. As villagers looked on, the workers doused inside and outside walls with a fine mist. It is a yearly effort to repel and kill mosquitoes that carry malaria - a disease that kills more than a million people a year, mostly children in sub-Saharan Africa.

Every year, about 1,300 people in the United States learn they have malaria. Most are travelers, and many are blasM-i about malaria. If they had taken antimalarial pills as directed - before, during and after the trip - and followed simple precautions, they would have greatly reduced the risk of getting the mosquito-transmitted disease. Worldwide, malaria affects up to 500 million people a year; 1 million die of the disease annually. It is endemic in more than 100 countries and territories, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

WASHINGTON - President Bush, responding to international pressure to do more for Africa, proposed yesterday a $1.2 billion program to combat malaria and promised to double U.S. aid to the continent over the next five years. Administration officials said Bush's Africa initiatives, which include smaller programs to increase education and reduce sexual violence, represented a significant new commitment of U.S. resources to assist many of the world's poorest nations. But the proposals fell somewhat short of the challenge issued by British Prime Minister Tony Blair in advance of next week's summit in Scotland of the Group of Eight industrialized nations.

Four million additional health care workers are needed over the next decade worldwide to abate potential health crises around the globe and especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where potential pandemic conditions loom, according to an analysis being published today. A consortium of more than 100 physicians and other experts examined public health globally and found that a shortage of health care workers is growing. The team reported that skilled doctors and nurses from poor countries are fleeing by the thousands to better working conditions in wealthier nations.

After more than two decades of research, researchers said yesterday that they have found the first vaccine that is effective against malaria. Trials in Africa showed that the vaccine blocked almost half of new infections in young children and reduced serious disease by nearly 60 percent. Experts termed the results a major breakthrough in efforts to tame a disease that afflicts 400 million people each year, killing 1 million to 3 million - most of them children in Africa. Malaria is the leading killer of children under age 5 and ranks with AIDS and tuberculosis among the world's most lethal diseases.

At first glance, David Reshef, a senior at Columbia's Atholton High, appears the typical 17-year-old. He plays sports, hangs out with his friends, draws anime-style sketches and spends a good deal of time preparing for college. What sets him apart is what he has accomplished at his part-time job. He is on the research staff at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in North Laurel, where he is working on a groundbreaking design for diagnosing malaria, which he first encountered as a small boy living in Africa.