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HIV's evolution

CHRISTINA SCOTT - Nov 04 2008 06:00

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The Congo city of Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) provided the right environment for the viral grandfather of HIV to jump from chimpanzees to humans, according to research published in Nature. DNA analysis from early biopsies suggests the virus jumped from apes to humans sometime between 1884 and 1924.

Ugandan minister denies embezzlement of Gavi funds
Uganda's former health minister Jim Muhwezi denies charges that he, with former junior ministers Alex Kamugisha and Mike Mukula and civil servant Alice Kaboyo, embezzled $1-million from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi) meant for the treatment and immunisation of malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/Aids. Other health ministry employees have refunded money they received.

Cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe
The Harare town council's inability to disinfect water and maintain electricity to pump sewage has been blamed for the cholera outbreak spreading across Zimbabwe and among refugees fleeing into neighbouring countries. Pharmacies and hospitals are reporting that they have no medicines left to treat cholera or other diseases.

Sudanese survivors
Children separated from their parents for 13 years after fleeing the Sudanese civil war proved remarkably adept at creating replacement families among their peers in refugee camps and finding strategies to cope, despite not knowing if their parents were dead or alive, a study shows.

Malaria rates drop in Africa
Insecticide-treated bednets have seen malaria rates drop by half in Eritrea, Rwanda and São Tomé and Príncipe, with "significant improvements" in Madagascar, Tanzania and Zambia, according to a World Health Organisation report. But some experts argue that the drop reflects better statistical estimates and that the WHO report relies on dodgy government data.

Researchers return to Nigeria
The India-based International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat) is to re-establish a centre in Nigeria. Icrisat signed a memorandum of understanding with the Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria and will prioritise traditional crops such as sorghum and millet.

Going blind from preventable eye infections
Severe outbreaks of the bacterial eye disease, trachoma, in Sudan is "cause for international alarm", say researchers. At least one trachoma case was found in almost all of 392 homes surveyed in a study. One in three families had the severe blinding form of the infection.

Ho ho ho to mistletoe
Farmers dread the parasitic plant mistletoe but it is also used as a tea in the treatment and management of many diseases such as diabetes by traditional medical practitioners. Nigerian biochemists Ademiluyi Adedayo Oluwaseun and Oboh Ganiyu found differences in mistletoe depending on whether it infested cocoa or cashew trees, and will now investigate it further.

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HIV's evolution

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