Malaria

MOSQUITO-BORNE malaria kills 2 million people each year -- mostly African children -- and infects more than 300 million others. Those numbers are bound to increase because the malaria parasite and mosquitoes are increasingly drug resistant. "Beyond the extraordinary human toll, malaria is one of the greatest barriers to Africa's economic growth, draining national health budgets and deepening poverty," Bill Gates said recently in announcing grants totaling $168 million to fight malaria.

WASHINGTON - The World Trade Organization agreed yesterday to give poor nations greater access to inexpensive lifesaving medicine by altering international trade rules. After several days of nonstop negotiations, the trade organization reached unanimous agreement yesterday morning, as its meeting was concluding, after speeches by several African delegates who said such a deal could save millions of lives. Under the accord, poor countries will be able to import generic versions of expensive patented medicines, buying them from countries such as India and Brazil without running afoul of trade laws protecting patent rights.

Six AIDS activists briefly disrupted a speech by federal Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson yesterday in Baltimore. As Thompson addressed a conference on illness prevention, the protesters burst into a tent in front of the Marriott Waterfront hotel where about 1,000 health officials and advocates were eating lunch. They held up posters and chanted, "AIDS is an emergency, save the Global Fund," before being led out by security guards. One of the protesters, Allison Dinsmore of Philadelphia, said later that they believe the $15 billion President Bush has pledged to the international fight against AIDS should go to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a multinational group.

While causing fever, chills and possibly even death for its victims, the malaria parasite also leaves a tell-tale sign behind: waste. "It's the perfect bar code for us to identify it," said Andrew Feldman, a scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. The iron-based waste compound is the key to Feldman and others' efforts to develop a portable machine to detect malaria. Malaria infects 300 million people a year and causes 1 million deaths, making it the third-deadliest disease in the world after HIV and tuberculosis, according to the World Health Organization.

While causing fever, chills and possibly even death for its victims, the malaria parasite also leaves a telltale sign behind: waste. "It's the perfect bar code for us to identify it," said Andrew Feldman, a scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. The iron-based waste compound is the key to Feldman and others' efforts to develop a portable machine to detect malaria. Malaria infects 300 million people a year and causes 1 million deaths, making it the third deadliest disease in the world after HIV and tuberculosis, according to the World Health Organization.

While causing fever, chills and possibly even death for its victims, the malaria parasite also leaves a telltale sign behind: waste. "It's the perfect bar code for us to identify it," said Andrew Feldman, a scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. The iron-based waste compound is the key to Feldman and others' efforts to develop a portable machine to detect malaria. Malaria infects 300 million people a year and causes 1 million deaths, making it the third deadliest disease in the world after HIV and tuberculosis, according to the World Health Organization.

Dr. David Francis Clyde, a world-renowned malaria expert whose experiences and research in Tanzania led to a greater understanding of the disease, died of pancreatic cancer Tuesday at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. He was 77. Born in Meruit, India, the son of a physician, he was sent to England at age 7 to study. He was evacuated from England at the start of World War II and sent to Kansas City, Kan., where he lived with relatives and graduated from high school in 1942. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Kansas in 1946 and earned his medical degree from McGill University in 1949.

SILVER SPRING -- Once each week, Wesley McCardell steps into a humid, brightly lighted room at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and bares his legs to be bitten by dozens of mosquitoes -- the same type that transmits diseases and kills millions of people worldwide. There is no danger that McCardell or the other volunteers will be infected with malaria, which kills 3 million people each year. Walter Reed's swarms are raised in laboratories and are disease-free. But bites from these anopheles stephensi can still cause itchy skin.

Malaria-infected mosquitoes have been found on an uninhabited Montgomery County island in the Potomac River that is a state wildlife refuge, the second time this month that infected mosquitoes have been found on an uninhabited county island. Montgomery County health officials said the mosquitoes were discovered in one of 10 traps on Van Deventer Island, a small tract just south of the site on Selden Island where malaria-infected mosquitoes were discovered last week. Lynn Frank, chief of public health services for Montgomery County, said the mosquitoes were trapped Thursday and tested Friday by researchers from the Bethesda-based Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

Health officials took steps yesterday toward spraying pesticide on the uninhabited Montgomery County island where malaria-infected mosquitoes have been found, as medical personnel tested workers employed on the island for the disease. Pesticide could be sprayed as early as Wednesday over Selden Island, a 400-acre tract where researchers found malaria-infected mosquitoes in traps, said Lynn Frank, chief of public health services for Montgomery County. Frank said health officials are meeting with environmental groups this week to alert them to plans by Maryland and Virginia to spray the pesticide naled from a Maryland Department of Agriculture plane.