African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic Why Africa Fears Western Medicine NEWSLETTER

Transcription

African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic
NEWSLETTER
Volume 3, Issue 9
October 2008
HONORING THE AFRICAN TRADITIONAL HERBALIST
HIV/AIDS - MALARIA
Why Africa Fears Western
Medicine
By Harriet A.Washington
July 31, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
TO Westerners, the repatriation of five nurses and a doctor
to Bulgaria last week after more than eight years’
imprisonment meant the end of an unsettling ordeal. The
medical workers, who in May 2004 were sentenced to
death on charges of intentionally infecting hundreds of
Libyan children with H.I.V., have been freed, and another
international incident is averted.
But to many Africans, the accusations, which have been
validated by a guilty verdict and a promise to reimburse
the families of the infected children with a $426 million
payout, seem perfectly plausible. The medical workers’
release appears to be the latest episode in a health care
nightmare in which white and Western-trained doctors and
nurses have harmed Africans — and have gone
unpunished.
Continued on page 2
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
1 Why Africa Fears Western Medicine
3 Afrikan Spirituality-Challenges Facing Indigenous Knowledge
4 Feature – Ancient African Medicine, Egypt and the World
6 Feature – Med Schools, Journals Fight Big Pharma’s Sway
7 Pathologists Believe They Have Pinpointed Achilles Heel of HIV
8 Feature – WHO Murdered Africa
14 Threat of World Aids Pandemic Among Heterosexuals is Over
15 Common Gene makes Africans more Vulnerable to HIV
16 Feature – What are Duffy Antigens?
19 Malaria Drug Contributing to Antibiotic Resistance
20 Malaria Fuels HIV Spread
21 Scientists Map Genomes of Malaria Parasite
25 Feature – The African Traditional Herbal Research Centre
27Traditional Medicine Playing Important Role
30 More Herbal Medicine Flood Ugandan Markets
32 Ugandans Now Live Up to 50 Years
33 Feature – Unified Field Theory of Disease
36 Researcher Record Major Breakthrough Against Malaria
42 HIV Hides from Drugs for Years
44 Drug Factors Sub-Standard
49 Farmers Reap Fortunes of Malaria Treatment
54 Herb Of The Month – Bridelia micrantha & More
What is the African Traditional
Herbal Research Clinic?
We can make you healthy and wise
Nakato Lewis
Blackherbals at the Source of the Nile, UG Ltd.
The African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic located
in Bukoto, Uganda is a modern clinic facility created to
establish a model space whereby indigenous herbal
practitioners and healers can upgrade and update their
skills through training and certification and respond to
common diseases using African healing methods and
traditions in a modern clinical environment.
Traditional healers are the major health labor resource
in Africa as a whole. In Uganda, indigenous traditional
healers are the only source of health services for the
majority of the population. An estimated 80% of the
population receives its health education and health care
from practitioners of traditional medicine. They are
knowledgeable of the culture, the local languages and
local traditions. Our purpose is to raise public
awareness and understanding on the value of African
traditional herbal medicine and other healing practices
in today’s world.
The Clinic is open and operational. Some of the
services we offer are African herbal medicine,
reflexology, acupressure, hot and cold hydrotherapy,
body massage, herbal tonics, patient counseling, blood
pressure checks, urine testing (sugar), and nutritional
profiles. We believe in spirit, mind and body. Spiritual
counseling upon request.
Visit us also at www.Blackherbals.com
Hours: 9:00 am to 6:00 pm Monday thru Friday
10 am to 4:00 pm Saturday - Sundays – Closed
-1-Traditional African Clinic – October 2008
Continued from page 1 – Why Africa Fears Western
Medicine
The evidence against the Bulgarian medical team, like
H.I.V.-contaminated vials discovered in their apartments,
has seemed to Westerners preposterous. But to dismiss
the Libyan accusations of medical malfeasance out of
hand means losing an opportunity to understand why a
dangerous suspicion of medicine is so widespread in
Africa.
Africa has harbored a number of high-profile Western
medical miscreants who have intentionally administered
deadly agents under the guise of providing health care or
conducting research. In March 2000, Werner Bezwoda, a
cancer researcher at South Africa’s Witwatersrand
University, was fired after conducting medical
experiments involving very high doses of chemotherapy
on black breast-cancer patients, possibly without their
knowledge or consent. In Zimbabwe, in 1995, Richard
McGown, a Scottish anesthesiologist, was accused of five
murders and convicted in the deaths of two infant patients
whom he injected with lethal doses of morphine. And Dr.
Michael Swango, ultimately convicted of murder after
pleading guilty to killing three American patients with
lethal injections of potassium, is suspected of causing the
deaths of 60 other people, many of them in Zimbabwe
and Zambia during the 1980s and ’90s. (Dr. Swango was
never tried on the African charges.)
These medical killers are well known throughout Africa,
but the most notorious is Wouter Basson, a former head
of Project Coast, South Africa’s chemical and biological
weapons unit under apartheid. Dr. Basson was charged
with killing hundreds of blacks in South Africa and
Namibia, from 1979 to 1987, many via injected poisons.
He was never convicted in South African courts, even
though his lieutenants testified in detail and with
consistency about the medical crimes they conducted
against blacks.
Such well-publicized events have spread a fear of
medicine throughout Africa, even in countries where
Western doctors have not practiced in significant
numbers. It is a fear the continent can ill afford when
medical care is already hard to come by. Only 1.3 percent
of the world’s health workers practice in sub-Saharan
Africa, although the region harbors fully 25 percent of the
world’s disease. A minimum of 2.5 health workers is
needed for every 1,000 people, according to standards set
by the United Nations, but only six African countries
have this many.
The distrust of Western medical workers has had direct
consequences. Since 2003, for example, polio has been
on the rise in Nigeria, Chad and Burkina Faso because
many people avoid vaccinations, believing that the vac-
cines are contaminated with H.I.V. or are actually
sterilization agents in disguise. This would sound incredible
were it not that scientists working for Dr. Basson’s Project
Coast reported that one of their chief goals was to find
ways to selectively and secretly sterilize Africans.
Such tragedies highlight the challenges facing even the
most idealistic medical workers, who can find themselves
working under unhygienic conditions that threaten patients’
welfare. Well-meaning Western caregivers must sometimes
use incompletely cleaned or unsterilized needles, simply
because nothing else is available. These needles can and do
spread infectious agents like H.I.V. — proving that
Western medical practices need not be intentional to be
deadly.
Although the World Health Organization maintains that the
reuse of syringes without sterilization accounts for only 2.5
percent of new H.I.V. infections in Africa, a 2003 study in
The International Journal of S.T.D. and AIDS found that as
many as 40 percent of H.I.V. infections in Africa are
caused by contaminated needles during medical treatment.
Even the conservative W.H.O. estimate translates to tens of
thousands of cases.
Several esteemed science journals, including Nature, have
suggested that the Libyan children were infected in just this
manner, through the re-use of incompletely cleaned medical
instruments, long before the Bulgarian nurses arrived in
Libya. If this is the case, then the Libyan accusations of
iatrogenic, or healer-transmitted, infection are true. The acts
may not have been intentional, but given the history of
Western medicine in Africa, accusations that they were
done consciously are far from paranoid.
Certainly, the vast majority of beneficent Western medical
workers in Africa are to be thanked, not censured. But the
canon of “silence equals death” applies here: We are
ignoring a responsibility to defend the mass of innocent
Western doctors against the belief that they are not treating
disease, but intentionally spreading it. We should approach
Africans’ suspicions with respect, realizing that they are
born of the acts of a few monsters and of the deadly
constraints on medical care in difficult conditions. By
continuing to dismiss their reasonable fears, we raise the
risk of even more needless illness and death.
Harriet A. Washington is the author of “Medical
Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation
on Black Americans From Colonial Times to the Present.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/opinion/31washington.html
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AFRIKAN SPIRITUALITY
CHALLENGES FACING
INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE
BY: KABATABAZI PATRICIA
ENVIRONMENTALIST
It is commonly accepted that we are living in the
“information age”. We are generators of vast knowledge.
True as it may seem, it has been noted that the present
generation is actually losing more information than it is
acquiring. Most shocking is the erosion of culturally based
knowledge represented by thousands of disappearing (RAFI,
1997). For example, experts in linguistics note that half of the
6000 languages spoken in the world will die out during the
21st century.
As each language vanishes, tens of thousands of years of
cultural heritage and indigenous knowledge is lost. Loss of
this cultural diversity is intricately linked with loss of
agricultural biodiversity. Loss of biodiversity puts at stake
food security and nutrition and overall agricultural
development.
The movement of people is leading to loss of farming
communities, languages and indigenous cultures; all represent
the erosion of human intellectual capital on massive scale.
Development of sustainable agriculture systems depends
upon the innovative capacity of farmers, forest dwellers,
pastoralists, and fisher-folk together with their accumulated
knowledge. Therefore, recognising, rewarding and protecting
indigenous knowledge systems is critical for agricultural
development, food security and nutrition.
Successful strategies should be formulated and implemented
to save our indigenous knowledge through environmental
impact assessment awareness/research, documentation, and
publication.
“The responsibility of conserving our indigenous knowledge
is for all of us, white and black. We came from one person,
our CREATOR.”
In Africa, I salute our great ancestors who carried out studies
on nature-given resources to name items as food, medicine,
shelter materials etc for our use.
This valuable intellect has been passed on from generation to
generation mainly in verbal communication. We are quite an
intelligent race to preserve information in that way for many
centuries without any written text to be left behind for the
________________________
Managing Editor: Nakato Lewis
PUBLISHER: KIWANUKA LEWIS
Published monthly and freely by BHSN for the African Traditional
Herbal Research Clinic
The traditional shrine as a symbol of our cultural history
coming generations, until writing finally reached Africa
for us to access it and preserve the knowledge.
The light of knowledge in Africa remained burning and it
is still burning even through the interventions of Arabs
and colonial masters. These external forces nearly
exterminated the pillars of African education in skills and
technology. The intruders` referred to Africa knowledge
of skills and technology as satanic, primitive, backward
and outdated, even up to today.
Given the nature of Lake Nalubale (Victoria) basin
climate, soil types and fresh waters, these three are
responsible for the wealth of biodiversity of plants,
animals, ants, birds etc. People of the ancient past took
advantage of the environment and were able to survive
many problems using the environment as answers to
overcome their day to-day challenges.
In Africa, each item is believed to belong to the Almighty,
the creator, giver and overseer of all creations, visible and
invisible ones. And that invisible power of creation is
believed to be the giver and taker of life. The second way
an African perceives nature is by way of association and
identification of themselves with in terms of totems,
clans, etc.
The third way Africans have looked at nature is by
taboos. It is taboo whenever a member in any one's given
community treated nature in a way perceived to result in
spoiling or destruction of the status quo.
The fourth way is to have sacred people, animals, rocks,
caves, trees, rivers, mountains etc.
The list is endless, but the important aspect in all these
efforts is to create controls and wise use and management
of nature- given resources.
Recommendation: There is need to carryout research on
the culture aspect for sustainable use of natural resources.
There should be functional and participatory research in
the world. There is a need to integrate our cultural aspects
into modern ways for natural resource management.
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Volume 3, Issue 9
NEWSLETTER
October 2008
FEATURED ARTICLES
Ancient African Medicine, Egypt, (Khemit) and the
World
By Jide Iwechia
June 08, 2007
Interestingly, certain remedies prescribed by Egyptian
physicians were way ahead of modern anticipation. For
instance, celery and saffron which were used for
rheumatism are currently hot topics of pharmaceutical
research, and pomegranate was used to eradicate
tapeworms, a remedy that remained in clinical use until
50 years ago. Acacia is still used in cough remedies
while aloes form a basis to soothe and heal skin
conditions. The knowledge and the uses of essential oils
and resins were introduced to the world by the ancient
Egyptians.” The early Egyptians appear to have been
the first to recognize that stress could contribute to
illness. They established sanitariums where people
would undergo “dream therapy” and treatments with
“healing waters.
It is now official! The western propaganda press and its
scholarly co-conspirators in the academia have finally
admitted that African Khemit gave the world the gift of
medical sciences as opposed to previously peddled lies
which identify Greece as the origin of medicine.
Imhotep, the Prince of Peace, the Egyptian inventor of
medicine and healing was a real historical African
genius who received the book of healing from the
mysterious forces of ancestral Africa.
This book was later given to the world and it forms the
basis of modern medicine and surgery.
The entire ancient world, including the ancient Greeks
celebrated this venerable old man of wisdom who was
synonymous with ingenuity. Even Hippocrates, socalled Greek Father of Modern Medicine was a devotee
of Imhotep the Prince of Peace.
Scientists examining documents dating back more than
3,500 years have confirmed that the origins of modern
medicine lie in ancient Egypt and not with Hippocrates
and the Greeks. The medical papyri were written in
2,500 BC – 1,000, thousands of years before
Hippocrates was born.
The medical documents were first discovered in the
mid-19th century but then suppressed because it
demonstrated facts which were antithetical to the
official but hypocritical racist attitudes which then
prevailed.
According to one of the scientists, Dr Jackie
Campbell:
“Classical scholars have always considered the ancient
Greeks, particularly Hippocrates, as being the fathers
of medicine but our findings suggest that the ancient
Egyptians were practising a credible form of pharmacy
and medicine much earlier,”
“When we compared the ancient remedies against
modern pharmaceutical protocols and standards, we
found the prescriptions in the ancient documents not
only compared with pharmaceutical preparations of
today but that many of the remedies had therapeutic
merit.”
“Many of the ancient remedies we discovered survived
into the 20th century and, indeed, some remain in use
today, albeit that the active component is now
produced synthetically.”
Imhotep
Imhotep was the world’s first named physician, and
the architect who built Egypt’s first pyramid. He is
indisputedly the world’s first doctor, a priest, scribe,
sage, poet, astrologer, a vizier and chief minister, to
Djoser (reigned 2630–2611 BC), the second king of
Egypt’s third dynasty.
An inscription on one of that king’s statues gives us
Imhotep’s titles as the “the prince of peace,”
“chancellor of the king of lower Egypt,” the “first one
under the king,” the “administrator of the great
mansion,” the “hereditary Noble,” the “high priest of
Heliopolis,” the “chief sculptor,” and finally the “chief
carpenter”.
Continued on page 5
Continued from page 8 – Ancient African Medicine
As a builder, Imhotep is the first recorded master
architects. He was the first pyramid architect and
builder, and among his works one counts the Djoser’s
Step Pyramid complex at Saqqara, Sekhemkhet’s
unfinished pyramid, and possibly the Edfu Temple.
The Step Pyramid remains today one of the most
brilliant architecture wonders of the ancient world and
is recognized as the first monumental stone structure.
Devotees bought offerings to his medical and spiritual
school in Saqqara, including mummified Ibises and
sometimes, in the hope of being healed.
He was later even worshipped by the early Christians as
one with Christ who was made to adopt one of the titles of
Imhotep, “the Prince of Peace”. The early Christians often
appropriated those pagan forms and persons whose
influence through the ages had woven itself so powerfully
into tradition that they could not omit them.
Imhotep was also the first known physician, medical
professor and a prodigous writer of medical books. As
the first medical professor, Imhotep is believed to have
been the author of the Edwin Smith Papyrus in which
more than 90 anatomical terms and 48 injuries are
described.
He was worshiped in Greece where he was identified with
their god of medicine, Aslepius. He was honored by the
Romans and inscriptions praising Imhotep were placed on
the walls of Roman temples. Most surprisingly, he even
managed to find a place in Arab traditions, especially at
Saqqara where his tomb is thought to be located.
He also founded a school of medicine in Memphis,
possibly known as “Asklepion, which remained
famous for two thousand years. All of this occurred
some 2,200 years before the Western Father of
Medicine Hippocrates was born.
Materia Medica
The ancient Egyptian physicians treated wounds with
honey, resins (including cannabis resin) and elemental
metals known to be antimicrobial. This practice is still a
valid medical protocol even today.
According to Sir William Osler, Imhotep was the:
“..first figure of a physician to stand out clearly from
the mists of antiquity.” Imhotep diagnosed and treated
over 200 diseases, 15 diseases of the abdomen, 11 of
the bladder, 10 of the rectum, 29 of the eyes, and 18 of
the skin, hair, nails and tongue. Imhotep treated
tuberculosis, gallstones, appendicitis, gout and
arthritis. He also performed surgery and practiced
some dentistry. Imhotep extracted medicine from
plants. He also knew the position and function of the
vital organs and circulation of the blood system. The
Encyclopedia Britannica says, “The evidence afforded
by Egyptian and Greek texts support the view that
Imhotep’s reputation was very respected in early
times. His prestige increased with the lapse of
centuries and his temples in Greek times were the
centers of medical teachings.”
Again, just like in these modern times, the prescriptions for
laxatives included castor oil and colocynth and bulk bran
and figs were used to promote regularity.
Along with medicine, he was also a patron of
architects, knowledge and scribes. James Henry
Breasted says of Imhotep:
“In priestly wisdom, in magic, in the formulation of
wise proverbs; in medicine and architecture; this
remarkable figure of Zoser’s reign left so notable a
reputation that his name was never forgotten. He was
the patron spirit of the later scribes, to whom they
regularly poured out a libation.”
Imhotep was, together with Amenhotep, the only
mortal Egyptians that ever reached the position of full
gods. He was also associated with Thoth, the god of
wisdom, writing and learning, and with the Ibises,
which was also associated with Thoth.
Other references show that colic was treated with
hyoscyamus, which is still used today, and that cumin and
coriander were used as intestinal carminatives.
Musculo-skeletal disorders were treated with rubefacients
to stimulate blood flow and poultices to warm and soothe
similar to the practices of modern practitioners of sports
medicine.
Interestingly, certain remedies prescribed by Egyptian
physicians were way ahead of modern anticipation. For
instance, celery and saffron which were used for
rheumatism are currently hot topics of pharmaceutical
research, and pomegranate was used to eradicate
tapeworms, a remedy that remained in clinical use until 50
years ago.
Acacia is still used in cough remedies while aloes forms a
basis to soothe and heal skin conditions. The knowledge
and the uses of essential oils and resins were introduced to
the world by the ancient Egyptians.”
The early Egyptians appear to have been the first to
recognize that stress could contribute to illness. They
established sanitariums where people would undergo
“dream therapy” and treatments with “healing waters.
Altogether, around 50 percent of the plants used in ancient
Egypt remain in clinical use today. Many of the medical
and surgical instruments such as knives and forceps have
Continued on page 13
Volume 3, Issue 9
NEWSLETTER
October 2008
FEATURED ARTICLES
Med Schools, Journals Fight Big Pharma’s Sway
Even as new guidelines are set, potential for conflict remains, say many
The Associated Press
September 10, 2008
TRENTON, N.J. - Just about every segment of the
medical community is piling on the pharmaceutical
industry these days, accusing drugmakers of deceiving
the public, manipulating doctors and putting profits
before patients.
Recent articles and editorials in major medical journals
blast the industry. Medical schools, teaching hospitals
and physician groups are changing rules to limit the
influence of pharmaceutical sales reps. And three top
editors of the prestigious New England Journal of
Medicine last month publicly sided against the drug
industry in a U.S. Supreme Court case over whether
patients harmed by government-approved medicines
may still sue in state courts.
As more voices have called for change, new guidelines
for how drugmakers and doctors should interact are
coming from both industries, and doctors say some
abuses of the past have ended. But the industries’
dealings remain fraught with potential conflict because
the sectors depend on each other so much — medicine
on drugmakers’ research dollars and drugmakers on the
credibility researchers give them.
“The influence that the pharmaceutical companies, the
for-profits, are having on every aspect of medicine ... is
so blatant now you’d have to be deaf, blind and dumb
not to see it,” said Journal of the American Medical
Association editor Dr. Catherine DeAngelis, a longtime
industry critic. “We have just allowed them to take
over, and it’s our fault, the whole medical community.”
In an April editorial in her journal, DeAngelis noted
two studies indicated past reports about Merck & Co.’s
withdrawn pain reliever Vioxx frequently were penned
by ghostwriters and that reports on some Vioxx studies
minimized the risk of death. Merck has denied the
charges.
“Manipulation of studies and publications by the
pharmaceutical and medical device industries is either
increasing or there has been more exposure of these
practices,” she wrote.
“We should say "Enough!"
She said industry influence includes swaying doctors
and medical students to their brands with gifts, funding
research at top teaching hospitals but keeping control of
the studies and results, failing to disclose study authors’
conflicts of interest, even taking over the continuing
medical education system for doctors by running
courses on new treatments. Critics say such courses are
taught by company-paid speakers who often promote
expensive new drugs over older, cheaper ones.
“We should all get together and say, ’Enough!”’
DeAngelis said.
Already, top journals are listing study authors’ conflicts
of interest, and dozens of medical schools and medical
specialty societies are barring gifts to doctors and
limiting their other financial ties to industry. Some
schools bar professors from being paid drug company’s
speakers. And one expert noted drugmakers have
stopped giving cash prizes to medical students for
presenting favorable research on their drugs at
conferences.
Still, no one is suggesting anything as drastic as cutting
off industry funding for academic research on new
drugs. Those billions help pay lab and other expenses at
virtually all U.S. teaching hospitals, medical schools and
affiliated practices, while giving the drugs’ developers
the cachet of having big-name academic researchers
running their studies.
The industry’s trade group, in an apparent response, in
July revised its 2002 “Code on Interactions with Healthcare Professionals” to ban giving out pens, mugs and
other noneducational gifts, taking doctors to restaurants
and giving them tickets for shows or sports events.
Bringing meals to their offices and donating anatomical
models and textbooks will still be allowed when the
voluntary code takes effect in January.
“America’s pharmaceutical companies devote many
years and billions of dollars to researching and develop-
Continued on page 7
Continued from page 6 – Med Schools, Journals Fight Big
Pharma
ing life-saving medicines,” and help drive progress and
economic growth, said Diane Bieri, general counsel for
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
“We will always face criticism and at times deserve it but
our companies remain committed to listening to and
learning from parties with divergent points of views.”
Hollie Gilroy, spokeswoman for the HealthCare Institute
of New Jersey, a trade group including many top
drugmakers, said the industry is an easy target, but
criticisms about gifts to doctors, beyond logo-bearing
pens and similar items, are either outdated or
exaggerated. She said the industry is quick to police itself
and tries to keep high ethical standards when dealing with
health-care professionals.
“There is no industry far and away that has been more
generous than the pharmaceutical industry,” Gilroy
added, noting companies give away medication samples,
fund large prescription assistance programs for the poor,
have helped African countries get AIDS medications, and
donate drugs and medical supplies after major disasters.
But pharmaceutical analyst Steve Brozak of WBB
Securities said drugmakers will find ways to adapt to new
rules.
“The earlier you can hook one of these doctors, the more
loyal they are” to a brand, Brozak said.
Medical groups have been fighting industry influence
harder since a 2006 JAMA editorial by 11 prominent
doctors urged teaching hospitals to lead in cleaning up
conflicts of interest between medicine and industry.
New Web site shows med schools policies
David Rothman, president of the Institute on Medicine as
a Profession, said about one-fourth of U.S. medical
schools now have policies on industry gifts “that really
pass muster.” Some bar sales reps from giving doctors
drug samples — but allow donations to a central supply
office — and don’t let them wander their halls to speak to
doctors.
“You’re not being bribed, you’re being gifted,” doctors
may think, but industry freebies influence prescribing
patterns, Rothman said.
On Wednesday, his group launched the first public
database showing detail conflict of interest policies at
most of the 125 U.S. academic medical centers.
At University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, possibly
the strictest, pharmaceutical reps since February have had
to get a perfect score on an online training program about
its rules to get appointments. Some reps have been
warned about infractions, but none have been banned,
said Dr. Barbara Barnes, head of industry relations.
Rothman said there’s a new effort to “clean up”
continuing medical education of doctors, the only
professionals he knows who don’t pay for it themselves.
In June, the Association of American Medical Colleges
put out guidelines that bar drugmakers from paying for
continuing medical education sessions on specific topics
but allow donations to a central fund.
The Council of Medical Specialty Societies, which
represents 32 specialty groups, this summer, started
collecting each group’s best practices on disclosure and
limitations on speaking and other activities by their
officers. Council CEO Dr. Norman Kahn said a new
council policy should be ready in November.
Meanwhile, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, a frequent
industry critic, is sponsoring a bill to require drugmakers
to report all payments to doctors — from buying meals to
flying them to conferences at resorts.
Doctors say there’s more to be done, but see an impact.
Dr. Marc Siegel, an internist and associate professor at
New York University School of Medicine, said the
school has fewer drugmaker-sponsored events, and he no
longer gets offers of baseball tickets or paid junkets as a
consultant at a doctors’ meeting — things he turned down
anyway. He said some colleagues no longer let drug sales
reps in their offices, but he does.
“I don’t mind — I like my staff to get a free lunch,”
Siegel said. “I don’t think it influences one iota what I
prescribe.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26622463/
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Pathologists Believe They
Have Pinpointed Achilles
Heel of HIV
ScienceDaily (July 16, 2008) — Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) researchers at The University of
Texas Medical School at Houston believe they have
uncovered the Achilles heel in the armor of the virus that
continues to kill millions.
The weak spot is hidden in the HIV envelope protein
gp120. This protein is essential for HIV attachment to
host cells, which initiate infection and eventually lead to
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome or AIDS.
Normally the body’s immune defenses can ward off
viruses by making proteins called antibodies that bind the
virus. However, HIV is a constantly changing and
mutating virus, and the antibodies produced after
-7- Traditional African October 2008
Volume 3, Issue 9
NEWSLETTER
October 2008
FEATURED ARTICLES
WHO MURDERED AFRICA - Excerpts
By William Campbell Douglas, M.D.
There is no question mark after the title of this article
because the title is not a question. It's a declarative
statement. WHO, the World Health Organization,
murdered Africa with the AIDS virus. That's a
provocative statement, isn't it?
The answers to this little mystery, Murder on the
WHO Express, will be quite clear to you by the end
of this report. You will also understand why the other
suspects, the homosexuals, the green monkey and the
Haitians, were only pawns in this virocidal attack on
the world. If you believe the government propaganda
that AIDS is hard to catch then you are going to die
even sooner than the rest of us. The common cold is a
virus. Have you ever had a cold? How did you catch
it? You don't really know, do you? If the cold virus
were fatal how many people would there be left in
the world?
Yellow fever is a virus. You catch it from mosquito
bites. Malaria is a parasite also carried by
mosquitoes. It is many times larger than the AIDS
virus (like comparing a pinhead to a moose head) yet
the mosquito easily carries this large organism to
man.
The tuberculosis germ, also, much larger than the
AIDS virus, can be transmitted by fomites (inanimate
objects such as towels). The AIDS virus can live for
as long as 10 days on a dry plate. You can't
understand this murder mystery unless you learn a
little virology.
Many viruses grow in animals and many grow in
humans, but most of the viruses that affect animals
don't affect humans. There are exceptions, of course,
such as yellow fever and small pox.
There are some viruses in animals that cause very
lethal cancer in those animals, but do not affect man
or other animals. The bovine leukemia virus (BLV),
for example, is lethal to cows but not humans. There
is another virus that occurs in sheep called sheep
visna virus which is also non-reactive in man. These
deadly viruses are "retro viruses" meaning that they
can change the genetic composition of cells that they
enter.
The World Health Organization, in published articles,
called for scientists to work with these deadly agents and
attempt to make a hybrid virus that would be deadly to
humans: "And attempt should be made to see if viruses
can in fact exert selective effects on immune function.
The possibility should be looked into that the immune
response to the virus itself may be impaired if the
infecting virus damages, more or less selectively, the cell
responding to the virus."
That's AIDS. What the WHO is saying in plain English is
"Let's cook up a virus that selectively destroys the T-cell
system of man, an acquired immune deficiency."
Why would anyone want to do this? If you destroy the Tcell system of man you destroy man. Is it even remotely
possible that the World Health Organization would want
to develop a virus that would wipe out the human race?
If their new virus creation worked, the WHO stated, then
many terrible and fatal infectious viruses could be made
even more terrible and more malignant. Does this strike
you as being a peculiar goal for a health organization?
Sometimes Americans believe in conspiracies and
sometimes they don't. Was there a conspiracy to kill
President Kennedy? Twenty-five years later the debate
still continues, and people keep changing their minds.
One day it's yes, the next day it's no-depending on what
was served for breakfast or how the stock market did the
day before.
But what about the green monkey? Some of the best
virologist in the world and many of those directly
involved in AIDS research, such as Robert Gallo and Luc
Montagnier, have said that the green monkey may be the
culprit. You know the story: A green monkey bit a native
on the ass and, bam-AIDS all over central Africa.
There is a fatal flaw here. It is very strange. Because
Gallo, Montagnier and these other virologists know that
the AIDS virus doesn't occur naturally in monkeys.
-8- Traditional African Clinic October 2008
Continued on page 9
Continued from page 8 – WHO Murdered Africa
In fact it doesn't occur naturally in any animal.
AIDS started practically simultaneously in the United
States, Haiti, Brazil, and Central Africa. (Was the
green monkey a jet pilot?) Examination of the gene
structure of the green monkey cells proves that it is not
genetically possible to transfer the AIDS virus from
monkeys to man by natural means. Because of the
artificial nature of the AIDS virus it will not easily
transfer from man to man until it has become very
concentrated in the body fluids through repeated
injections from person to person, such as drug addicts,
and through high multiple partner sexual activity After
repeated transfer it can become a "natural" infection
for man, which it has.
Dr. Theodore Strecker's research of the literature
indicates that the National Cancer Institute in
collaboration with the World Health Organization
made the AIDS virus in their laboratories at Fort
Detrick (now NCI). They combined the deadly
retroviruses, bovine leukemia virus and sheep visna
virus, and injected them into human tissue cultures.
The result was the AIDS virus, the first human
retrovirus known to man and now believed to be 100
percent fatal to those infected.
The momentous plague that we now face was
anticipated by the National Academy of Sciences
(NAS) in 1974 when they recommended that
"Scientists throughout the world join with the
members of this committee in voluntarily deferring
experiments (linking) animal viruses." What the NAS
is saying in carefully guarded English is: "For God's
sake, stop this madness!"
The creation of the AIDS virus by the WHO was not
just a diabolical scientific exercise that got out of hand.
It was a cold-blooded successful attempt to create a
killer virus which was then used in a successful
experiment in Africa. So successful in fact that most of
central Africa may be wiped out, 75,000,000 dead
within 3-5 years.
It was not an accident. It was deliberate. In the
Federation Proceedings of the United States in 1972,
WHO said: "In the relation to the immune response a
number of useful experimental approaches can be
visualized." They suggested that a neat way to do this
would be to put their new killer virus (AIDS) into a
vaccination program, sit back and observe the results.
"This would be particularly informative in siblings,"
they said. That is, give the AIDS virus to brothers and
sisters and see if they die, who dies first, and of what,
just like using rats in a laboratory.
They used smallpox vaccine for their vehicle and the
geographical sites chosen in 1972 were Uganda and other
African states, Haiti, Brazil and Japan. The present or
recent past of AIDS epidemiology coincides with these
geographical areas.
Dr. Strecker points out that even if the African green
monkey could transmit AIDS to humans, the present
known amount of infection in Africa makes it statistically
impossible for a single episode, such as a monkey biting
someone, to have brought this epidemic to this point. The
doubling time of the number of people infected, about
every 14 months, when correlated with the first known
case, and the present known number of cases, prove
beyond a doubt that a large number of people had to have
been infected at the same time. Starting in 1972 with the
first case from our mythical monkey and doubling the
number infected from that single source every 14 months
you get only a few thousand cases. From 1972 to 1987 is
15 years or 180 months. If it takes 14 months to double
the number of cases then there would have been 13
doublings, 1 then 2, then 4, then 8, etc. In 15 years, from
a single source of infection there would be about 8,000
cases in Africa, not 75 million AIDS infected people. We
are approaching World War II mortality statistics herewithout a shot being fired.
Dr. Theodore A. Strecker is the courageous doctor who
unraveled this conundrum, the greatest murder mystery of
all time. He should get the Nobel Prize but he'll be lucky
not to get "suicided." ("Prominent California doctor ties
his hands behind his back, hangs himself, and jumps from
20th floor. There was no evidence of foul play.") Strecker
was employed as a consultant to work on a health
proposal for Security Pacific Bank. He was to estimate
the cost of their health care for the future. Should they
form a health maintenance organization? (HMO) was a
major issue. After investigating the current medical
market he advised against the HMO because he found
that the AIDS epidemic will in all probability bankrupt
the nation's medical system.
He became fascinated with all the peculiar scientific
anomalies concerning AIDS that kept cropping up. Why
did the "experts" keep talking about green monkeys and
homosexuals being the culprits when it was obvious that
the AIDS virus was a man-made virus? Why did they say
that it was a homosexual and drug-user disease when in
Africa it was obviously a heterosexual disease? If the
green monkey did it, then why did AIDS explode
practically simultaneously in Africa, Haiti, Brazil, the
United States and southern Japan?
Why, when it was proposed to the National Institute of
Health that the AIDS virus was a combination of two
bovine or sheep viruses cultured in human cells in a
Continued from page 7–Pathologists Believe They Have pinpointed A. Heel of HIV
infection do not control disease progression to AIDS. For
the same reason, no HIV preventative vaccine that
stimulates production of protective antibodies is
available.
The Achilles heel, a tiny stretch of amino acids numbered
421-433 on gp120, is now under study as a target for
therapeutic intervention. Sudhir Paul, Ph.D., pathology
professor in the UT Medical School, said, “Unlike the
changeable regions of its envelope, HIV needs at least
one region that must remain constant to attach to cells. If
this region changes, HIV cannot infect cells.
Equally important, HIV does not want this constant
region to provoke the body’s defense system. So, HIV
uses the same constant cellular attachment site to silence
B lymphocytes - the antibody producing cells. The result
is that the body is fooled into making abundant antibodies
to the changeable regions of HIV but not to its cellular
attachment site. Immunologists call such regions
superantigens. HIV’s cleverness is unmatched. No other
virus uses this trick to evade the body’s defenses.”
Paul is the senior author on a paper about this theory in a
June issue of the journal Autoimmunity Reviews.
Additional data supporting the theory are to be presented
at the XVII International AIDS Conference Aug. 3-8 in
Mexico City in two studies titled “Survivors of HIV
infection produce potent, broadly neutralizing IgAs
directed to the superantigenic region of the gp120 CD4
binding site” and “Prospective clinical utility and
evolutionary implication of broadly neutralizing antibody
fragments to HIV gp120 superantigenic epitope.”
First reported in the early 1980s, HIV has spread across
the world, particularly in developing countries. In 2007,
33 million people were living with AIDS, according to a
report by the World Health Organization and the United
Nations.
Paul’s group has engineered antibodies with enzymatic
activity, also known as abzymes, which can attack the
Achilles heel of the virus in a precise way. “The abzymes
recognize essentially all of the diverse HIV forms found
across the world. This solves the problem of HIV
changeability. The next step is to confirm our theory in
human clinical trials," Paul said.
have identified antibodies that, instead of passively bind ing
to the target molecule, are able to fragment it and destroy
its function. Their recent work indicates that naturally
occurring catalytic antibodies, particularly those of the IgA
subtype, may be useful in the treatment and prevention of
HIV infection,” said Steven J. Norris, Ph.D., holder of the
Robert Greer Professorship in the Biomedical Sciences and
vice chair for research in the Department of Pathology and
Laboratory Medicine at the UT Medical School at Houston.
The abzymes are derived from HIV negative people with
the autoimmune disease lupus and a small number of HIV
positive people who do not require treatment and do not get
AIDS. Stephanie Planque, lead author and UT Medical
School at Houston graduate student, said, “We discovered
that disturbed immunological events in lupus patients can
generate abzymes to the Achilles heel of HIV. The human
genome has accumulated over millions of years of
evolution a lot of viral fragments called endogenous
retroviral sequences. These endogenous retroviral
sequences are overproduced in people with lupus, and an
immune response to such a sequence that resembles the
Achilles heel can explain the production of abzymes in
lupus. A small minority of HIV positive people also start
producing the abzymes after decades of the infection. The
immune system in some people can cope with HIV after
all.”
Carl Hanson, Ph.D., who heads the Retrovirus Diagnostic
Section of the Viral and Rickettsial Disease Laboratory of
the California Department of Public Health, has shown that
the abzymes neutralize infection of human blood cells by
diverse strains of HIV from various parts of the world.
Human blood cells are the only cells that HIV infects.
“This is an entirely new finding. It is a novel antibody that
appears to be very effective in killing the HIV virus. The
main question now is if this can be applied to developing
vaccine and possibly used as a microbicide to prevent
sexual transmission,” said David C. Montefiori, Ph.D.,
director of the Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine Research &
Development at Duke University Medical Center. The
abzymes are now under development for HIV
immunotherapy by infusion into blood. They could also be
used to guard against sexual HIV transmission as topical
vaginal or rectal formulations.
Unlike regular antibodies, abzymes degrade the virus
permanently. A single abzyme molecule inactivates
thousands of virus particles. Regular antibodies inactivate
only one virus particle, and their anti-viral HIV effect is
weaker.
“HIV is an international priority because we have no
defense against it,” Paul said. “Left unchecked, it will likely
evolve into even more virulent forms. We have learned a
lot from this research about how to induce the production of
the protective abzymes on demand. This is the Holy Grail
of HIV research -- development of a preventative HIV
vaccine.”
“The work of Dr. Paul’s group is highly innovative. They
Continued on age 11
Continued from page 10 – Pathologists believe they have
pinpointed Achilles. Heel of HIV
Major contributors to the research from the UT Medical
School include Yasuhiro Nishiyama, Ph.D., and Hiroaki
Taguchi, Ph.D., both with the Department of Pathology
and Laboratory Medicine, and Miguel Escobar, M.D., of
the Department of Pediatrics. Maria Salas and Hanson,
both with the Viral and Rickettsial Disease Laboratory,
contributed. The research was funded by the National
Institutes of Health and the Texas Higher Education
Coordinating Board.
Journal references:
Planque et al. Catalytic antibodies to HIV: Physiological role
and potential clinical utility. Autoimmunity Reviews, 2008; 7
(6): 473 DOI: 10.1016/j.autrev.2008.04.002
Stephanie Planque et al. Catalytic antibodies to HIV:
Physiological role and potential clinical utility. Autoimmunity
Reviews, 2008; 7 (6): 473 DOI: 10.1016/j.autrev.2008.04.002
Adapted from materials provided by University of Texas Health
Science Center at Houston.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080715165520.
htm
☻☻☻☻☻☻
laboratory, did they say it was "bad science" when that's
exactly what occurred?
As early as 1970 the World Health Organization was
growing these deadly animal viruses in human tissue
cultures. Cedric Mims, in 1981, said in a published article
that there was a bovine virus contaminating the culture
media of the WHO. Was this an accident or a "nonaccident"? If it was an accident why did WHO continue
to use the vaccine?
This viral and genetic death bomb, AIDS, was finally
produced in 1974. It was given to monkeys and they died
of pneumocystis carni which is typical of AIDS.
Dr. R. J. Biggar said in Lancet. "...The AIDS agent...
could not have originated de novo." That means in plain
English that it didn't come out of thin air. AIDS was
engineered in a laboratory by virologist. It couldn't
engineer itself. As Doctor Strecker so colorfully puts it:
"If a person has no arms or legs and shows up at a party
in a tuxedo, how did he get dressed? Somebody dressed
him."
There are 9,000 to the fourth power possible AIDS
viruses. (There are 9,000 base pairs on the genome.) So
the fun has just begun. Some will cause brain rot similar
to the sheep virus, some leukemia-like diseases from the
cow virus and some that won't do anything. So the virus
will be constantly changing and trying out new esoteric
diseases on hapless man. We're only at the beginning.
Because of the trillions of possible genetic combinations
there will never be a vaccine. Even if they could develop a
vaccine they would undoubtedly give us something equally
bad as they did with the polio vaccine (cancer of the brain),
the swine flu vaccine (a polio-like disease), the smallpox
vaccine (AIDS), and the hepatitis vaccine (AIDS).
There are precedents. This is not the first time the virologist
have brought us disaster. SV-40 virus from monkey cell
cultures contaminated polio cultures. Most people in their
40's are now carrying this virus through contaminated polio
inoculations given in the early 60's. It is known to cause
brain cancer which explains the increase in this disease that
we have seen in the past ten years.
This is the origin of the green monkey theory. The polio
vaccine was grown on green monkey kidney cells. Sixtyfour million Americans were vaccinated with SV-40contaminated vaccine in the 60's. An increase in cancer of
the brain, possibly multiple sclerosis, and God only knows
what else the tragic result is. The delay between vaccination
and the onset of cancer with this virus is as long as 20-30
years. 1965 plus 20 equals 1985. Get the picture?
The final piece of the puzzle is how AIDS devastated the
homosexual population in the United States. It wasn't from
smallpox vaccination as in Africa because we don't do that
any more. There is no smallpox in the United States and so
vaccination was discontinued.
Although some AIDS has been brought to the United States
from Haiti by homosexuals, it would not be enough to
explain the explosion of AIDS that occurred simultaneously
with the African and Haitian epidemics.
The AIDS virus didn't exist in the United States before
1978. You can check back in any hospital and no stored
blood samples can be found anywhere that exhibits the
AIDS virus before that date.
What happened in 1978 and beyond to cause AIDS to burst
upon the scene and devastate the homosexual segment of
our population? It was the introduction of the hepatitis B
vaccine which exhibits the exact epidemiology of AIDS.
A Doctor W. Szmuness, born in Poland and educated in
Russia, came to this country in 1969-Szmuness's
immigration to the U.S. was probably the most fateful
immigration in our history. He, by unexplained process,
became head of the New York City blood bank. (How does
a Russian trained doctor become head of one of the largest
blood banks in the world? Doesn't that strike you as
peculiar?)
He set up the rules for the hepatitis vaccine studies. Only
males between the ages of 20 and 40, who were not
monogamous, would be allowed to participate in this study.
Can you think of any reason for insisting that all experi-
mentees be promiscuous?
The Centers for Disease Control reported in 1981 that
four percent of those receiving the hepatitis-vaccine
were AIDS-infected. In 1984 they admitted to 60
percent. Now they refuse to give out figures at all
because they don't want to admit that 100 percent of
hepatitis vaccine receivers are infected with AIDS.
Where is the data on the hepatitis vaccine studies?
FDA? CDC? No, the U.S Department of Justice has it
buried where you will never see it. What has the
government told us about AIDS?
* It's a homosexual disease-WRONG. (The
homosexuals certainly spread it but the primary
responsibility wasn't theirs.)
* It's related to anal intercourse only-WRONG.
* Only a small percentage of those testing positive for
AIDS would get the disease-WRONG.
* It came from the African green-back monkeyWRONG.
* It came from the cytomegalovirus-WRONG.
* It was due to popping amyl nitrate with sexWRONG.
* It was started 400 years ago by the PortugueseWRONG. (It started in 1972.)
* You can't get it from insects-WRONG.
* The virus can't live outside the body-WRONG.
The head of the Human Leukemia Research Group at
Harvard is a veterinarian. Dr. O. W. Judd, International
Agency for Research on Cancer, the agency that
requested the production of the virus in the first place,
is also a veterinarian. The leukemia research he is
conducting is being done under the auspices of a school
of veterinary medicine.
Now there is nothing wrong with being a vet but, as we
have pointed out, the AIDS virus is a human virus. You
can't test viruses in animals and you can't test
leukemias in them either. It doesn't work. So why
would your government give Judd, a veterinarian, eight
and one-half million dollars to study leukemia in a
veterinary college? As long as we are being used as
experimental animals, maybe it's appropriate.
The London Times should be congratulated for
uncovering the smallpox-AIDS connection. But their
expose was very misleading. The article states that the
African AIDS epidemic was caused by the smallpox
vaccine "triggering" AIDS in those vaccinated.
Dr. Robert Gallo, who has been mixed up in some very
strange scientific snafus, supports this theory. Whether the
infection of 75 million Africans was deliberate or
accidental can be debated but there is no room for debate
about whether the smallpox shots; "awakened the
unsuspected virus infection." There is absolutely no
scientific evidence that this laboratory-engineered virus was
present in Africa before the World Health Organization
descended upon these hapless people in 1967 with their
deadly AIDS-laced vaccine. The AIDS virus didn't come
from Africa. It came from Fort Detrick, Maryland, U.S.A.
The situation is extremely desperate and the medical
profession is too frightened and cowed (as usual) to take
any action. Dr. Strecker attempted to mobilize the doctors
through some of the most respected medical journals in the
world. The prestigious Annals of Internal Medicine said
that his material "appears to be entirely concerned with
matters of virology" and so try some other publication.
In his letter to The Annals, Strecker said, "If correct human
experimental procedures had been followed we would not
find half of the world stumbling off on the wrong path to
the cure for AIDS with the other half of the world covering
up the origination of the damned disease. It appears to me
that your Annals of Internal Medicine is participating in the
greatest fraud ever perpetrated."
I guess they didn't like that so Strecker submitted his
sensational and mind-boggling letter with all of the proper
documentation to the British journal, Lancet. Their reply:
"Thank you for that interesting letter on AIDS. I am sorry
to have to report that we will not be able to publish it. We
have no criticism" but their letter was "overcrowded with
submissions." They're too crowded to announce the end of
western civilization and possibly all mankind? It doesn't
seem reasonable.
What can we do? The first thing that should be done is
close down all laboratories in this country that are dealing
with these deadly retroviruses.
Then we must sort out the insane irresponsible and
traitorous scientists involved in these experiments and try
them for murder. Then maybe, just maybe, we can re-staff
the laboratories with people who will work to save a
remnant of people to repopulate and re-civilize the world.
References:
1. Allison, et al, Bull WHO 1972. 47:257-63 and Amos, et
al. Fed Proc. 1972, 31:1087
2. Omni Magazine, March. 1986, p. 106.
3. Jan. 11, 1986. [???]
4. London Times Front page, May 11, 1987.
http://healingtools.tripod.com/who_africa.html
☻☻☻☻☻☻
-12 - Traditional African Clinic October 2008
Continued from page 5 – Ancient African Medicine,
Egypt and the World
not changed their design since the ancient Africans
first sent out this knowledge to the world. Today,
researchers are still discovering “new” cures based on
old Egyptian remedies, such as eating celery to help
curb inflammation associated with arthritis.
Roots of Kemitic Knowledge
The study further conducted genetic and chemical
analysis on plant remains and resins, with the goal of
identifying trade routes, which species were used and
how these plants might have been cultivated outside
their natural growing ranges.
After detailed facts gathering and analysis the
scientists proposed that the African Egyptians
obtained their medical knowledge from nomadic
African tribes that united to form ancient Egypt, as
well as from neighbouring African people in Kush
and beyond.
Current medical practices by the living African
societies and traditions still show similarities to
Pharaohic medicine.
The continued use by African natural Doctors of
medicinal herbs and animal products, and practices
such as cosmetic dental filing, brain trepanning,
orthopedic procedures, known to ancient Egyptians
suggest sustained scientific and religious interaction
in the past.
Alas, current studies are revealing that the knowledge
of medicine was transferred from central west Africa
to Egypt, just like everything else that was gifted
from Kush to Kemet.
This is very significant since it is widely known that
the foundations of modern western medicine came
from Egypt. Around 50 percent of the plants used in
ancient Egypt remained in clinical use. Medical tools
like forceps, scissors and surgical blades, were lifted
unchanged from ancient Egyptian medical science
into modern western medicine. Medical practices,
and knowledge of human anatomy, also found their
way into the body of scientific knowledge underlying
western medicine.
Since the knowledge of Egyptian medical science
was from inner Africa, more precisely central and
western Africa, the world owes this continent and its
children a belated tribute, a sound recognition for
having bequeathed the science of healing and hygiene
to later cultures and civilizations who still owe the
unrequited debt of appreciation for Africa’s
beneficence.
Sources:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-05/uomeng05090
.php
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/02/28/egyptiandrug_arc.html
?category=animals&guid=20070228104530
Chronicle of the Pharaohs (The Reign-By-Reign Record of the
Rulers and Dynasties of Ancient Egypt) Clayton, Peter A. 1994
Thames and Hudson Ltd ISBN 0-500-05074-0.
Complete Pyramids, The (Solving the Ancient Mysteries) Lehner,
Mark 1997 Thames and Hudson, Ltd ISBN 0-500-05084-8.
Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, The Shaw, Ian; Nicholson, Paul
1995 Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers ISBN 0-8109-3225-3.
History of Ancient Egypt, A Grimal, Nicolas 1988 Blackwell
None Stated.
Monarchs of the Nile Dodson, Aidan 1995 Rubicon Press ISBN
0-948695-20-x.
Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, The Shaw, Ian 2000 Oxford
University Press ISBN 0-19-815034-2.
http://www.africaresource.com/content/view/559/236/
☻☻☻☻☻☻
AIDS Epidemic hits Men Hard
CDC: More than half of infections among gay and bisexual
men in 2006
Reuters
September 11, 2008
WASHINGTON - AIDS remains largely a disease of gay
and bisexual men in the United States but also
disproportionately infects black women, according to an
analysis published on Thursday.
Last month, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention reported that more than 56,000 people in the
United States become newly infected with the human
immunodeficiency virus each year, far more than previous
estimates of about 40,000.
Now the CDC has further analyzed those numbers to find
the fatal and incurable virus largely infects men who have
sex with men, or MSM — a group that includes gays,
bisexuals and men who may have the occasional sexual
encounter other men.
"The male-to-male sexual contact transmission category
represented 72 percent of new infections among males,
including 81 percent of new infections among whites, 63
percent among blacks, and 72 percent among Hispanics,”
the report said.
-13 - Traditional African Clinic October 2008
Threat of World Aids Pandemic
among Heterosexuals is Over,
Report Admits
A 25-year health campaign was misplaced outside
the continent of Africa. But the disease still kills
more than all wars and conflicts
By Jeremy Laurance
8 June 2008
The Independent
A quarter of a century after the outbreak of Aids, the
World Health Organisation (WHO) has accepted that the
threat of a global heterosexual pandemic has disappeared.
In the first official admission that the universal
prevention strategy promoted by the major Aids
organisations may have been misdirected, Kevin de
Cock, the head of the WHO's department of HIV/Aids
said there will be no generalised epidemic of Aids in the
heterosexual population outside Africa.
Dr De Cock, an epidemiologist who has spent much of
his career leading the battle against the disease, said
understanding of the threat posed by the virus had
changed. Whereas once it was seen as a risk to
populations everywhere, it was now recognised that,
outside sub-Saharan Africa, it was confined to high-risk
groups including men who have sex with men, injecting
drug users, and sex workers and their clients.
Dr De Cock said: "It is very unlikely there will be a
heterosexual epidemic in other countries. Ten years ago a
lot of people were saying there would be a generalised
epidemic in Asia – China was the big worry with its huge
population. That doesn't look likely. But we have to be
careful. As an epidemiologist it is better to describe what
we can measure. There could be small outbreaks in some
areas."
In 2006, the Global Fund for HIV, Malaria and
Tuberculosis, which provides 20 per cent of all funding
for Aids, warned that Russia was on the cusp of a
catastrophe. An estimated 1 per cent of the population
was infected, mainly through injecting drug use, the same
level of infection as in South Africa in 1991 where the
prevalence of the infection has since risen to 25 per cent.
Dr De Cock said: "I think it is unlikely there will be
extensive heterosexual spread in Russia. But clearly there
will be some spread."
Aids still kills more adults than all wars and conflicts
combined, and is vastly bigger than current efforts to
address it. A joint WHO/UN Aids report published this
month showed that nearly three million people are now
receiving anti-retroviral drugs in the developing world,
but this is less than a third of the estimated 9.7 million
people who need them. In all there were 33 million
people living with HIV in 2007, 2.5 million people
became newly infected and 2.1 million died of Aids.
Aids organisations, including the WHO, UN Aids and
the Global Fund, have come under attack for inflating
estimates of the number of people infected, diverting
funds from other health needs such as malaria, spending
it on the wrong measures such as abstinence programmes
rather than condoms, and failing to build up health
systems.
Dr De Cock labelled these the "four malignant
arguments" undermining support for the global campaign
against Aids, which still faced formidable challenges,
despite the receding threat of a generalised epidemic
beyond Africa.
Any revision of the threat was liable to be seized on by
those who rejected HIV as the cause of the disease, or
who used the disease as a weapon to stigmatise high risk
groups, he said. "Aids still remain the leading infectious
disease challenge in public health. It is an acute infection
but a chronic disease. It is for the very, very long haul.
People are backing off, saying it is taking care of itself.
It is not."
Critics of the global Aids strategy complain that vast
sums are being spent educating people about the disease
who are not at risk, when a far bigger impact could be
achieved by targeting high-risk groups and focusing on
interventions known to work, such as circumcision,
which cuts the risk of infection by 60 per cent, and
reducing the number of sexual partners.
There were "elements of truth" in the criticism, Dr De
Cock said. "You will not do much about Aids in London
by spending the funds in schools. You need to go where
transmission is occurring. It is true that countries have
not always been good at that."
But he rejected an argument put in The New York Times
that only $30m (£15m) had been spent on safe water
projects, far less than on Aids, despite knowledge of the
risks that contaminated water pose.
"It sounds a good argument. But where is the scandal?
That less than a third of Aids patients are being treated –
or that we have never resolved the safe water scandal?"
One of the danger areas for the Aids strategy was among
men who had sex with men. He said: "We face a bit of a
crisis [in this area]. In the industrialised world
transmission of HIV among men who have sex with men
is not declining and in some places has increased.
Continue on page 15
Continued from page 14 – Threat of World HIV Pandemic
Among Heterosexuals is Over
"In the developing world, it has been neglected. We have
only recently started looking for it and when we look, we
find it. And when we examine HIV rates we find they are
high.
"It is astonishing how badly we have done with men who
have sex with men. It is something that is going to have
to be discussed much more rigorously."
The biggest puzzle was what had caused heterosexual
spread of the disease in sub-Saharan Africa – with
infection rates exceeding 40 per cent of adults in
Swaziland, the worst-affected country – but nowhere
else. "It is the question we are asked most often – why is
the situation so bad in sub-Saharan Africa? It is a
combination of factors – more commercial sex workers,
more ulcerative sexually transmitted diseases, a young
population and concurrent sexual partnerships."
"Sexual behaviour is obviously important but it doesn't
seem to explain [all] the differences between populations.
Even if the total number of sexual partners [in subSaharan Africa] is no greater than in the UK, there seems
to be a higher frequency of overlapping sexual
partnerships creating sexual networks that, from an
epidemiological point of view, are more efficient at
spreading infection."
Low rates of circumcision, which is protective, and high
rates of genital herpes, which causes ulcers on the
genitals through which the virus can enter the body, also
contributed to Africa's heterosexual epidemic.
But the factors driving HIV were still not fully
understood, he said.
"The impact of HIV is so heterogeneous. In the US , the
rate of infection among men in Washington DC is well
over 100 times higher than in North Dakota, the region
with the lowest rate. That is in one country. How do you
explain such differences?"
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health
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Continued from page 13 - Aids Epidemic Hits Men
Hard
Of the new infections in 2006, more than half were
among gay and bisexual men, the CDC found. Of these,
46 percent of new infections were among whites, 35
percent among blacks and 19 percent in Hispanics.
But among the overall U.S. population, more blacks are
affected — 46 percent of new infections were among
blacks.
especially in the black community.
"The alarming number of new infections among young
black MSM underscores the need to ensure that each new
generation has the knowledge and skills to prevent HIV
infection beginning early in their lives," the report reads.
Girls and women made up 27 percent of new infections,
with high-risk sexual contact with men causing 80
percent of new infections.
"Among females, 61 percent of infections were in blacks,
23 percent were in whites, and 16 percent were in
Hispanics," the CDC report reads.
There is no cure for the AIDS virus, which is transmitted
in bodily fluids such as blood, semen and breast milk.
Around the world, sexual contact is by far the most
common mode of transmission although people who use
contaminated needles can be infected, and blood
transfusions also can cause infection.
"African-Americans make up 12 percent of the total U.S.
population, yet represented 45 percent of new HIV
infections in the United States in 2006," the CDC wrote.
Globally, 33 million people are infected with HIV and 25
million have died of it. There is no vaccine or cure
although drug cocktails can help control the infection.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26660893/
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Common Gene makes
Africans more Vulnerable to
HIV
James Randerson
Guardian.co.uk
July 17, 2008
Around 11% of HIV infections in Africa may be due to a
genetic variant common in people of African descent that
makes them more vulnerable to the virus. The genetic
change, which is less prevalent in other ethnic groups,
increases the likelihood of infection with the most com
mon strain of the virus (HIV-1) by 40%. Once infection
has occurred, though, the genetic variant slows the
progression of the disease, prolonging the patient's life by
around two years.
The newly discovered genetic factor may go some way to
explaining why AIDS is so prevalent in sub-Saharan
Africa. According to the World Health Organisation,
there were 4.3 million people newly infected with HIV
worldwide in 2006 and 2.9 million deaths from AIDSrelated illnesses. Around a third of all new infections and
The CDC said it needed to redouble prevention efforts,
Volume 3, Issue 9
NEWSLETTER
October 2008
FEATURED ARTICLES
“What are Duffy Antigens?”
An antigen is a molecule that will set off the forces of
the immune system to get rid of things that may be bad
for us.
Scientists are just starting to realize that the antigen
molecules that distinguish one blood type from another
have a lot of other important jobs elsewhere in our
bodies.
Here's how it works. All our cells have numerous
molecules on the surface that, like little billboards,
announce, `This cell is part of us. It's supposed to be
here. Do not attack!'
Immune system cells traveling around in our blood are
trained to recognize self molecules and pass right by.
But if our immune system inspects a foreign cell in our
blood and doesn't recognize a molecule on the surface,
it treats that molecule as an antigen and attacks. That
attack often involves creating a molecule called an
antibody designed specifically to fit the unique shape of
the foreign antigen. The antibody attaches to the
antigen and, like a chemical loudspeaker, summons
other components of the immune system to come
destroy the invader.
In 1901 Karl Landsteiner of Austria noticed that some
red blood cells had one kind of molecule on their outer
surface, which he labeled simply A, and some had a
different one that he labeled B.
Some didn't have either, and he called those O (as in
zero, not the letter ``o''.) Those molecules turned out to
be antigens. The discovery made transfusions possible
and earned Landsteiner a Nobel prize. Since then,
we've discovered nearly 300 different antigens on red
blood cells, with names like Duffy, Lutheran,
Dombrock, Kidd, Diego, P, Yt, and Kx.
They're mostly named for the people whose blood
carried unique antibodies. Like Mr. Duffy, the English
patient who got sick after a transfusion. He received the
right ABO type. But there was another antigen on the
transfused blood that his immune system didn't like. It
made a special antibody cell nobody had ever seen
before to fit onto and attack that antigen. That antigen
was named Duffy.
In 1950, the Duffy blood group was named for the
multiply transfused hemophiliac whose serum
contained the first example of anti-Fya. In 1951, the
antibody to the antithetical antigen, Fyb, was discovered
in the serum of a woman who had been pregnant three
times. Using these antibodies three common
phenotypes were defined: Fy(a+b+), Fy(a+b-), and
Fy(a-b+). Differences in the racial distribution of the
Duffy antigens were discovered four years later when it
was reported that the majority of Blacks had the
erythrocyte phenotype Fy(a-b-). This phenotype is
exceedingly rare in Whites. The frequency of the Fy(ab-) phenotype is 68 percent in American Blacks and 88100 percent in African Blacks. The absence of Duffy
antigens on erythrocytes results in their resistance to
invasion by two malaria parasites, Plasmodium vivax
and Plasmodium knowlesi. This racial variation in
distribution of the Duffy system antigens provides one
of the few known examples of selective advantage
conferred by a blood group phenotype. The Duffy
genes, located on chromosome one at position 1922-23,
have recently been cloned and sequenced. The
difference between Fya and Fyb is a change in the
amino acid at position 43 from aspartic acid (Fya) to
glycine (Fyb). Studies have shown that blacks whose
erythrocytes express Fyb antigen also have the antigen
on the cells of their kidney, heart, muscle, brain and
placenta. The Duffy gene codes for a protein known as
a chemokine receptor, which is important in the
inflammatory process.
Rh is another well-known red blood cell antigen.
Rhesus monkeys experimentally transfused with human
blood made the antibody this time, thus the Rh.
If you have this antigen (there are actually 40 antigens
in the Rh family) you're Rh positive. If you don't,
you're Rh negative. Rh and ABO antigens are the most
important ones determining whether a transfusion will
work.
But nature didn't put antigens on our red blood cells to
make sure transfusions would work. Transfusions are
not a natural occurrence. So what's going on?
Continued from page 17 – “What are Duffy Antigens”
It turns out that these molecules are involved in many
other biological processes.
Remember Duffy? Well, many Africans and AfricanAmericans don't have a Duffy antigen. As a result, they
can survive a form of malaria that infects the cell only if
it can attach to Duffy. No Duffy antigen, no P. vivax
malaria.
Remember the P antigen? One species of E. coli bacteria
needs that molecule to attach to tissue cells in the urinary
tracts of children. Some children have that molecule.
Some don't. Those without it don't get that kind of urinary
infection.
The molecule that the bacterium H. pylori attaches to in
the stomach lining to cause ulcers is an antigen when it's
on red blood cells.
On some non-blood cells, antigens appear, or disappear,
or change, as tumors go from benign to cancerous. Some
antigen molecules appear to play a role in helping cancer
spread through the body. Some help blood cell
membranes maintain their shape. Some help cells process
proteins.
Statistical associations, which don’t automatically prove
cause and effect, show that A's have more cancers than
O's and that O's bleed more than A's. B's defecate the
most. O's have the best teeth, but suffer more than other
blood types from plague infections. A's have the worst
hangovers.
There are wide racial, ethnic, and geographic differences
in blood types around the world. There are twice as many
O's among native Australians as among Japanese.
Eskimos in Greenland are 25 times more likely to be B's
than Navajos in North America. Citizens of India are four
times more likely to be B's than residents of England.
All the findings suggest that molecules that distinguish
blood types probably developed differently in different
people as part of the random processes of mutation and
evolution. As nature tests which ones are best, some will
offer advantages, some disadvantages, in ways that
immuno-hematologists like Garratty are only beginning
to understand.
http://jove.prohosting.com/~scarfex/blood/8.html
http://www.boston.com/globe/search/stories/health/how_and_w
hy/112398.htm
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Scientists make Gene Link to
African HIV Epidemic
Mark Henderson, Science Editor
From The Times
July 17, 2008
A genetic variant peculiar to Africans substantially raises
their risk of infection with HIV, according to research
that suggests evolved susceptibility may be helping to
drive the continent’s Aids epidemic.
The 90 per cent of Africans who carry the DNA variation
are 40 per cent more likely to contract HIV than those
without it, after similar exposure to the virus, scientists
from Britain and America have found.
As the genetic change is common among people of
African ancestry but virtually unknown among other
ethnic groups, it could explain in part why HIV-Aids is
more prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa. The United
Nations estimates that 22.5 million people there are HIVpositive, more than two thirds of the global total of
approximately 33.2 million.
The variant, known as “Duffy-negative”, is so common in
Africa that it could be responsible for about 11 per cent
of the continent’s HIV burden, or 2.5 million cases,
scientists said.
“It is an Africa-specific variant, which is why it’s so
interesting in the context of Aids research,” said Robin
Weiss, Professor of Infection and Immunity at University
College London, a member of the study team.
“It could certainly be a contributing factor to the scale of
the epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa. It’s the first time, so
far as we understand, that a genetic factor that increases
susceptibility to infection has come into play.”
Sexual behaviour is also involved in the epidemic in
Africa, the only part of the world in which it
predominantly affects heterosexuals.
The Duffy-negative gene has probably spread so widely
through the African population because it provides
resistance to a form of malaria called Plasmodium vivax.
Professor Weiss believes it may also once have increased
resistance against a precursor of the most deadly malaria
parasite, Plasmodium falciparum.
These traits would have been highly advantageous in
evolutionary Africa. As HIV is a new human pathogen,
thought to have jumped from chimpanzees to people
between 1910 and 1950, the gene’s effect on the virus
would have had no negative consequences until recently.
Continued from page 18 – Scientists make Gene Link to
African HI Epidemic
“Something that protected against malaria in the past is
now leaving the host more susceptible to HIV,” Professor
Weiss said.
Matthew Dolan, of the San Antonio Military Medical
Centre in Texas, said: “After thousands of years of
adaptation, this Duffy variant rose to high frequency
because it helped protect against malaria. Now, with
another global pandemic on the scene, this same variant
renders people more susceptible to HIV. It shows the
complex interplay between historically important
diseases and susceptibility in contemporary times.”
For the study, published in the journal Cell Host &
Microbe, scientists examined a group of US Air Force
personnel, of whom more than 1,200 are HIV-positive,
and who have been followed for nearly 22 years. The
Duffy-negative genotype was seen almost exclusively in
African-Americans.
A continent cursed
— Sub-Saharan Africa is the globe’s most Aids-affected
region. In 2005, 24.5 million of its people were living
with HIV and of all Aids sufferers, 64 per cent live there
— In 2005, about 2.7 million people became infected
with HIV and more than two million died
— More than two million children under 15 are HIVpositive and more than 90 per cent live in Africa
— About 12 million African children under 17 have lost
one or both parents to Aids
— About 72 per cent of all people needing anti-retroviral
treatment live in Africa, and only one in six receives the
necessary medicine
is complicated because the disease has developed
resistance to the most commonly used treatments. A survey comprising of Semi-Structured Interviews and a
questionnaire was undertaken in the rural villages of
Buseete and Busambira found in Kamuli district, Uganda,
to document herbal medicines used in the treatment of
malaria and to document existing knowledge, attitudes
and practices related to malaria recognition, control and
treatment.
The people were knowledgeable about malaria. Malaria
attacked individuals an average of six times a year.
Conditions favoring the breeding of mosquitoes, such as
dense bush, were evident in all homesteads. Preferred
malaria treatment was biased towards the Allopathic
Medicine (AM) system. This preference for AM was
attributed to ignorance of how to exploit herbal medicines
for the treatment of malaria and also to the belief that
allopathic medicines were superior to herbal medicines.
Some respondents stated a preference to herbal
medicines, though. This preference was motivated by the
free and ready accessibility to plants. Knowledge of using
herbal medicines was average and was mainly restricted
to women.
Twenty seven species were reportedly used in
antimalarial herbal preparations. The most frequently
mentioned species were Vernonia amygdalina,
Momordica foetida, Zanthoxylum chalybeum, Lantana
camara and Mangifera indica. Concoctions were prepared
as cold extracts and were administered in variable doses.
It is proposed that the most frequently mentioned species
be considered for further research to evaluate their
efficacy and safety.
http://www.wlbcenter.org/drawer/reports/final_report.pdf
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— Swaziland has the highest HIV rate, at 33.4 per cent of
population. Botswana has 24.1 per cent and Zimbabwe
20.1 per cent
Source: UNAids
9 Million Children Worldwide
Died Before Age 5
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article4
345263.ece
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Rate of under-five mortality dipped slightly from
2006, UNICEF says
Herbal Medicines for the
Treatment of Malaria in
Kamuli District, Uganda
John R.S. Tabuti
Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
Abstract
Malaria is the single most important cause of ill health,
death and poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. Its management
Reuters
September 11, 2008
LONDON - More than 9 million children globally died
before their fifth birthday in 2007, down slightly from
2006, but a huge gap remains between rich and poor
countries, especially in Africa, UNICEF said on Friday.
Efforts to promote breastfeeding, immunizations and
anti-malaria measures have helped cut child deaths to 9.2
million from 9.7 million a year ago and 12.7 million in
1990, the figures from the United Nations Children’s
Fund showed.
Continued from page 18 – 9 Million Children Worldwide
Died Before Age 5
“Since 1960, the global under-five mortality rate has
declined more than 60 percent, and the new data shows
the downward trend continues,” UNICEF Executive
Director Ann Veneman said in a statement.
Improvements in Latin America and the Caribbean,
Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and
in parts of Asia drove the overall decline, but deaths
remain high in sub-Saharan Africa where one in seven
children dies before age 5.
AIDS is still a major killer of children in sub-Saharan
Africa, though countries such as Eritrea, Malawi,
Mozambique, Niger and Ethiopia have made significant
progress in cutting mortality rates, UNICEF said.
“Sub-Saharan Africa now accounts for almost half of the
9.2 million deaths among children in this age group
annually,” according to the UNICEF report published in
the journal Lancet.
“High levels of fertility...together with high levels of
mortality in children aged less than 5 years have led to an
increase in the absolute number of deaths (in this
region).”
Worldwide, the death rate for children under age 5 was
68 per 1,000 live births in 2007, down from the 93 per
1,000 in 1990 and 72 per 1,000 a year ago.
Sierra Leone had the worst under-five mortality rate in
the world with 262 out of every 1,000 children dying
before their fifth birthday. The rate in industrialized
nations was 6 per 1,000.
A number of countries, including Laos, Bangladesh,
Bolivia and Nepal, have also made good progress toward
meeting global targets to reduce the child mortality rates
by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015, UNICEF said.
“Recent data also indicate encouraging improvements in
many of the basic health interventions, such as early and
exclusive breast feeding, measles immunization, Vitamin
A supplementation, the use of insecticide-treated nets to
prevent malaria, and prevention and treatment of AIDS,”
Veneman said.
“These interventions are expected to result in further
declines in child mortality over the coming years.”
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☻☻☻☻☻☻
Malaria Drug ‘Contributing to
Antibiotic Resistance’
SciDev.Net
Daily Monitor
August 3, 2008
A new study shows that overuse of a drug used to
prevent and treat malaria may be contributing to growing
resistance to a related antibiotic.
Researchers report in the journal PloS ONE that
Escherichia coli bacteria resistant to the antibiotic
ciprofloxacin – a type of fluroquinolone – were detected
in the digestive tracts of villagers from remote rainforest
communities in Guyana, despite them never having been
given the drug.
Most of the villagers had been given the drug chloroquine
– a drug closely related to ciprofloxacin – to prevent and
treat malaria.
535 villagers were sampled for resistant bacteria in the
three-year study, with 4.8 per cent found to be carrying
ciprofloxacin-resistant E. coli.
Guyana recorded over 11,000 cases of malaria last year,
the Minister of Health, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, told
SciDev.Net. He said the findings were “interesting” and
that the Ministry of Health would commission its own
study to test the accuracy of the research results.
The antibiotic ciprofloxacin is used throughout the world
to treat bacterial infections, including pneumonia, urinary
tract infections and sexually transmitted diseases. This is
the first study to show that resistance can emerge in
individuals never exposed to the antibiotic.
Drug resistant bacteria are known to arise from overuse
of antibiotics, which is why researchers were surprised to
discover that they can develop in areas that do not have
access to ciprofloxacin, says study co author Michael
Silverman, an infectious disease specialist at Lakeridge
Health Network in Ontario, Canada.
In fact, he says, ciprofloxacin-resistant E. coli were even
more widespread in remote Guyanese villages than in the
United States intensive care units “where every second
person is on antibiotics”.
E. coli is one of the most common causes of infection in
humans. A decade ago it was nearly universally
susceptible to ciprofloxacin,” says Andrew Simor, a
senior scientist at the Sunnybrooke Health sciences
Center at the University of Toronto.
Today, he says, as many as 30 per cent of hospital
patients tested have E. coli that fails to respond to
ciprofloxacin.
Continued from page 19 – Malaria Drug Contributing to
Antibiotic Resistance
Resistance to ciprofloxacin could be an important
public health problem in areas where malaria is
endemic - and therefore chloroquine use common –
because ciprofloxacin and other fluroquinolones could
be less effective, write the authors.
Silverman stressed that the study highlights the need to
continue to try to prevent malaria through the use of
insecticide-treated bed nets, along with the
development of an effective vaccine.
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Malaria Fuels HIV/Aids
Spread In Africa
By Will Dunham
December 8, 2006
malaria has helped HIV infect hundreds of thousands
and perhaps millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa.
AIDS was first identified a quarter century ago.
At the same time, HIV fuels malaria's spread because
HIV-infected people are more susceptible to malaria as
a result of HIV ravaging the immune system, the body's
natural defenses, the researchers said.
AIDS and malaria are concentrated in sub-Saharan
Africa. Abu-Raddad said scientists were puzzled when
they realized that the risky sexual behavior by people in
the region was not by itself sufficient to explain the
swift spread of HIV, so other factors must be involved.
They focused their work on Kisumu, a Kenyan city by
Lake Victoria where HIV and malaria are both
common. They said 5 percent of HIV infections can be
blamed on the increased HIV viral load due to malaria,
and 10 percent of adult malaria cases can be blamed on
HIV.
Note - What the story ISN'T saying is that mosquitoes
are SPREADING HIV. Every time a mosquito or ANY
biting insect takes blood from an infected human and
then bites the next person, scores of viruses and
bacteria are transmitted. To write a news story without
pointing to the obvious disease-vectoring reality of
mosquitoes is gross deception at the least. This is a
particularly odious statement: "Higher viral load
causes more HIV transmission, and malaria causes
high HIV viral load.” Mosquitoes are already KNOWN
to transmit over 70 different retroviruses. HIV is a
retrovirus...but there is no mention of any of this in the
following story. - ed
Since 1980, 8,500 more people got HIV infections, and
there were 980,000 more episodes of malaria (a person
can get it more than once) in a city whose adult
population is 200,000, the study found.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Malaria may be helping
spread the AIDS virus across Africa, the continent
hardest hit by the incurable disease, scientists said on
Thursday.
Malaria kills more than a million people annually,
mostly young children in sub-Saharan Africa.
The way the two diseases interact greatly expands the
prevalence of both among people in sub-Saharan
Africa, a team of scientists said in a study in the journal
Science.
Malaria, a mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite,
greatly boosts viral load -- the amount of human
immunodeficiency virus in the blood of infected people
-- making them more likely to infect a sex partner with
HIV, they stated.
"Higher viral load causes more HIV transmission, and
malaria causes high HIV viral load," said lead study
author Laith Abu-Raddad of the Fred Hutchinson
Cancer Research Center in Seattle and the University of
Washington.
PUBLIC HEALTH EFFORTS
The findings have implications for public health efforts,
Abu-Raddad said, showing the importance for
authorities to tackle these diseases together.
Of the 39.5 million people worldwide infected with
HIV, 24.7 are in the poor countries of sub-Saharan
Africa. About 2.1 million of the world's 2.9 million
AIDS deaths in the past year were in this region.
The researchers produced their results with a
mathematical model using HIV and malaria infection
data gathered in Malawi by James Kublin of the
Hutchinson Center. This enabled them to quantify for
the first time the synergy between malaria on HIV and
its toll on people.
Scientists previously determined that a lack of male
circumcision and the incidence of genital herpes also
were facilitating the spread of HIV. Abu-Raddad noted
that circumcised men are much less likely to get HIV,
and that genital herpes opens a door for HIV to infect a
person.
Abu-Raddad said malaria now can be considered a
third serious factor facilitating the spread of HIV.
The two diseases drive one another even though they
have different modes of transmission-- malaria by mos-
Abu-Raddad, an AIDS researcher, estimated that
Continued from page 20 – Malaria Fuels HIV Spread in
Africa
quito and HIV predominantly by sexual intercourse,
Abu-Raddad noted.
Abu-Raddad said once an HIV person gets malaria, his
or her viral load goes up and stays higher for six to
eight weeks, making the person far more infectious to
others.
http://www.rense.com/general74/mala.htm
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Continued from page 15 - Common Gene Makes
Africans More Vulnerable to HIV
AIDS- related deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa,
where there are eight countries in which adult HIV
prevalence exceeds 15% of the population.
Ironically, scientists believe that the genetic variant is
at such high levels in Africa because it conferred
resistance to a now extinct form of malaria.
A team of British and US researchers studied a group
of 3,484 people in the US Air Force, of whom 1,266
were infected with HIV. They tested each for a gene
variant called Duffy Antigen Receptor for Chemokines
(DARC), which has been extensively studied in the past
because of its ability to confer resistance to one form of
the malaria parasite. The gene is known to be common
among people of African descent.
The team report in the journal Cell, Host and Microbe
that subjects who were DARC-negative were more
likely to be infected with HIV. The gene variant
appeared to make them 40% more susceptible to
infection.
By extrapolating this figure to the number of people in
Africa with the same genetic variation, the researchers
estimate that 11% of all HIV infections in the continent
are due to this increased susceptibility.
"The mystery of variable infection and progression was
originally thought to be mainly the result of viral
characteristics, but in recent years it has become
evident that there is a strong host genetic component,"
said team member Dr Sunil Ahuja of the University of
Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.
"The big message of this paper is that something that
protected people against malaria in the past is now
leaving them more susceptible to HIV," said Robin
Weiss of University College London, who also worked
on the study.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jul/17/hiv.aids/
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Scientists Map Genomes of
Malaria Parasites
Discovery will help in creating new treatments,
vaccines, researchers say
Reuters
October 8, 2008
WASHINGTON - Scientists have mapped the genomes
of the parasite that causes most cases of malaria outside
Africa and a monkey parasite that is emerging as an
important cause of malaria in people in Southeast Asia.
This information should help guide efforts to develop
new drugs and vaccines to fight the mosquito-borne
disease, two teams of researchers wrote in the journal
Nature on Wednesday.
"It's going to be a very powerful tool," Jane Carlton of
New York University Langone Medical Center said.
A team led by Carlton worked out the complete genetic
sequence of the parasite Plasmodium vivax, which
causes malaria in Latin America and Asian countries
including India, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia,
Melanesia and the Korean peninsula.
It accounts for up to 40 percent of malaria globally,
with an estimated 2.6 billion people threatened by the
parasite.
Although the malaria it causes is only occasionally
fatal, it triggers severe symptoms such as repeated
episodes of high fever followed by headache, chills and
profuse sweating, vomiting, diarrhea and enlargement
of the spleen.
The vivax parasite can remain dormant in the liver only
to re-emerge and cause relapses months or years after
the initial illness. The researchers found genes that may
be responsible for this dormancy, perhaps paving the
way for scientists to find ways to disrupt it.
The researchers identified genes in the parasite that
seem to help it invade a person's red blood cells and
evade the immune system. The parasite is becoming
resistant to some antimalarial drugs.
A team led by Arnab Pain of the Wellcome Trust
Sanger Institute in Britain deciphered the full genetic
sequence of the monkey parasite Plasmodium knowlesi.
This parasite is rapidly establishing itself as the fifth
human-infecting malaria parasite and has emerged as a
considerable health problem in Southeast Asia, Pain
said.
The researchers also found a trick used by the knowlesi
parasite to avoid detection by the immune system.
Malaria Builds Resistance,
Kills Millions
GLENN McKENZIE
Associated Press
September 20, 2003
LAGOS, Nigeria - Malaria, the ancient mosquito-borne
disease that was rolled back by medical advances in the
mid-20th century, is making a deadly comeback.
Strains of the disease are becoming increasingly
resistant to treatment, infecting and killing more people
than ever before - sickening as many as 900 million last
year, according to estimates by the U.S. Agency for
International Development.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has
supported malaria efforts, is also expected to announce
new funding toward malaria medicines, controls and
vaccine research this weekend.
"We hope that malaria gets some additional visibility,"
Bill Gates, the Microsoft tycoon, said in a conference call
with journalists. "Of those million people who die,
overwhelmingly those are children. ... This is something
we should demand more action on."
Malaria campaigners complain that despite the increased
focus, their efforts remain woefully underfunded.
Whereas AIDS vaccine research receives $400 million a
year, malaria research receives just $60 million.
More than 1 million people - and as many as 2.7
million by some estimates - of those victims died. The
vast majority of the deaths were in Africa.
While donors commit an estimated $200 million each
year to treating impoverished patients and distributing
mosquito nets and insecticides to prevent mosquito bites
that transmit the disease, experts say they need at least $1
billion to make a dent.
Shivering and sweating feverishly, Felicia Egbuchue
took the malaria medicine her doctor prescribed.
Although it had cured her in years past, this time it
didn't. She was rushed to the hospital, and hooked up to
an intravenous drip.
"Malaria has to some extent been forgotten by the
international community," said Allan Schapira, a senior
official in WHO's Rollback Malaria program. "Apart
from AIDS, it is the single worst child health problem
that we haven't got a grip on."
"I have no inner strength. I feel like I'm dying," the 30year-old university student said from her hospital bed.
In Nigeria, a nation of 126 million people where
government officials estimate up to one-quarter of the
world's malaria deaths occur, researchers at the national
Nigerian Institute of Medical Research test malaria
treatments and other drugs on mice in a single tiny,
stiflingly hot laboratory.
After three days in a private hospital in Nigeria's
commercial capital of Lagos, Egbuchue recovered from
what doctors said was a strain that had become resistant
to many of the standard treatments.
"Malaria is something that we thought we had
conquered years ago. But more and more of our people
are dying from it every day," said Patrick Dike, a
malaria specialist at the Lagos hospital.
Only AIDS kills more people worldwide. Among child
ren, malaria kills even more than AIDS.
The economic cost of malaria is also high - in countries
of Africa, Asia and Latin America where the disease is
endemic, the World Health Organization estimates up
to $12 billion are lost annually to the disease.
Americans traveling abroad also are at risk. Of the 225
Marines and Navy forces who went ashore to assist
West African peacekeepers in Liberia, 51 showed
symptoms - an unusually high rate, U.S. officials said.
International efforts to contain or even eradicate the
disease have received a boost in recent years with
major grants from the U.S. government and from the
$4.7 billion five-year U.N. Global Fund for Aids,
Tuberculosis and Malaria.
"The resources available in Nigeria for this work are
limited or even nonexistent," research director Philip
Agomo said.
A major cause of malaria's alarming resurgence is the
parasite's increasing resistance to the drugs used to treat
and prevent the disease - including chloroquine, the
cheapest and most effective anti-malarial since the 1950s.
The number of alternatives are limited. The WHO
supports use of multi-drug combinations based on
artemisinin, until recently an extract from the "sweet
wormwood" plant used in China for centuries but little
known in the West.
Yet aid agency officials say that artemisinin is not yet
produced in large enough quantities to affordably treat
the large numbers of Africans who need it most.
Some governments and Western donors have been
hesitant to promote the treatment widely because of a
lack of funds - artemisinin is 10 times more expensive
than chloroquine, or between $4.50 and $9 for a threeday treatment.
Continued from page 22 – Malaria Builds Resistance
malaria drugs.
"It is definitely the future," Anne Peterson, head of
global health for USAID in Washington, said of
artemisinin-based drugs. "Yet it is far more expensive
and harder to get out to the numbers of people who
need it."
A team of French and Cameroonian scientists made the
discovery after collecting samples of Anopheles
mosquitoes from five localities including Oveng village
-- which lies between two rivers near the border with
Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.
The Nobel Prize-winning international humanitarian
group Medecins Sans Frontieres is urging the United
States and other Western governments to support and
fund artemisinin-based therapy regimens. It notes
chloroquine and other drugs have become ineffective in
up to 80 percent of malaria cases in some countries.
"It is then that we discovered that the samples from
Oveng village were different from existing varieties in
terms of morphology and behaviour," Parfait Herman
Awono-Ambene, one of the scientists who carried out
the research, told Reuters on Friday.
"Donors must stop wasting their money funding drugs
that don't work," MSF said in a report.
Peterson, the USAID official, said that until it receives
more funds, the U.S. agency will support the use of the
"cheapest, most effective drugs" in countries where
they still have use.
Dike, the Lagos doctor, said in the absence of
affordable alternatives, he and some colleagues have in
desperation begun exchanging information about what
available combinations work best to treat patients.
"People don't understand why their relatives are
sometimes not recovering, or why they are not being
cured as quickly as they are used to being cured. How
do you explain drug resistance? When they are
suffering, the doctor is blamed."
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/6820492.htm
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Mosquitoes from the Anopheles group transmit malaria
-- which kills roughly 3,000 people every day -- to
humans along rivers in Africa. The results of the study
were published in the July issue of the Journal of
Medical Entomology.
"The interesting thing about Oveng Form is that it is
hardly found inside houses though it bites human
beings just like others and contains the malaria-carrying
agent Plasmodium falciparum," Awono-Ambene said,
referring to the most life-threatening form of the
disease.
He said the mosquito found in Oveng becomes very
active at dusk, feeding on people who live near or along
the banks of the two rivers.
More research will need to be carried out to determine
whether this variety is only present in Oveng village,
but Awono-Ambene said the mosquito was also likely
to exist in neighbouring Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.
New Malaria-Carrying
Mosquito Found in
Cameroon
Malaria costs Africa around $12 billion a year in lost
income.
By Tansa Musa
The country's public health authorities are promoting
the use of impregnated nets to fight the disease, but
adequate nets are not always easily available and at
3,500 CFA francs ($6.5) they are often too expensive
for the average household.
24 July 2004
YAOUNDE, July 24 (Reuters) - A new form of
mosquito carrying the parasite responsible for the most
deadly form of malaria, Africa's biggest killer alongside
HIV/AIDS, has been discovered in a village in southern
Cameroon, researchers say.
In Cameroon, it represents 35 to 40 percent of deaths in
hospitals and is responsible for 40 percent of deaths
among children aged between zero and five.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L24594997.htm
☻☻☻☻☻☻
FYI – In Uganda
Discovery
of
the
hitherto-unknown
variety,
provisionally dubbed "Oveng Form" after the village
where it was found, is likely to make the fight against
the malaria in Cameroon even more difficult,
researchers say, although more research is needed.
25-40 Percent of outpatients visit health centres due to
Malaria.
It joins four other species already known in the central
African country, all of them resistant to common anti-
Malaria is the leading cause of death in Uganda.
20 Percent of hospital admissions and 15 per cent of
in-patients deaths are due to Malaria.
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Scientists say Africa Must
Make Own Drugs to Fight
AIDS, Malaria
treatment in the area of enforced HIV illness. And the
letter has been sent to one of the prominent figure
within the African community. We will appreciate if
you can pass on this letter to other African people
within the community.
By ELLIOTT SYLVESTER
I believe that the human and health rights of Africans in
New Zealand are being severely transgressed in the
testing, diagnosis and treatment (especially when
enforced) of HIV disease. This discrimination is
manifest in several forms.
Associated Press
March 20, 2003
STELLENBOSCH, South Africa - Scientists challenged African nations Thursday to produce their own
generic drugs - not just rely on pharmaceutical giants to
help fight AIDS, malaria and other diseases ravaging
the continent.
African nations lag behind countries such as Cuba and
India that produce "homegrown" medicines, Gordon
Dougan, a British vaccine expert, told a conference on
the human genome initiative.
"We need to reinvent local production of high quality
generic vaccines," Dougan said. "Countries are no
longer producing their own vaccines, and this is why
huge pharmaceutical companies control the industry."
More than 300 scientists from 16 countries are in
Stellenbosch, about 30 miles north of Cape Town, at a
conference aimed at using knowledge of the human
genome - a genetic blueprint that scientists are working
to map - to help combat diseases.
Dr. Hoosen Coovadia, HIV/AIDS researcher at South
Africa's University of Natal, said African governments
should translate scientific research into policy to
overcome the most serious diseases facing Africa.
The United Nations estimates there were 3.4 million
new HIV infections in Africa in 2001 - almost 70
percent of the global total.
British Dr. Matt Berriman told the conference human
genome research has cut the time it is taking him to
find a vaccine for malaria - a vaccine he said may ready
for use in 20 years.
The mosquito-borne disease kills about 3,000 Africans
a day, most of them under five years of age.
☻☻☻☻☻☻
To all African People Living
in New Zealand
March 1, 2008
This letter is to let all African people living in New
Zealand about the discrimination that is happening here
in New Zealand in regard to the testing, diagnosis and
Simply being Black African in New Zealand is seen as
“high risk” compared to being tested in African
countries. This is an important consideration in relation
to interpretation of the tests (because the interpretation
is arbitrary). The staff deciding the test results are
informed in their own 2000 handbook: “By mid 1999,
1,355 patients had been reported with HIV infection
since the beginning of the epidemic and 678 with
AIDS.
Currently there are about 700 HIV infected people
living in New Zealand of whom 107 have AIDS.
Homosexual males remain the biggest identifiable risk
group (63% now) but in the last 18 months infected
heterosexual immigrants, particularly from Africa, are
the most rapidly increasing group. After falling for
several years, the number of newly reported HIV
infected people rose in 1998, significantly contributed
to by this immigrant group,” i.e. it’s those Black
Africans who are increasing our rate of HIV disease,
not our racist coercion in testing. Black Africans are
more than 200 times more likely to be “positive” on
these tests. Rules of privacy and confidentiality are not
adhered to; the doctors reason that hospital personnel
have a right to know if a Black African has HIV so they
don’t “catch” the AIDS disease.
This despite the fact that not one single health care
worker anywhere in the world has contracted AIDS
through accidental exposure in the 23 years since the
‘epidemic’ began. Black Africans and their children are
being coerced into these tests, where white Europeans
are not. A Black African presenting with any medical
condition, however unrelated to any possible HIV
disease, to a New Zealand hospital suffers great
pressure to get an HIV test.
MOH and Statistics NZ figures demonstrate that Black
Africans have a higher prevalence of HIV in New
Zealand than the reported rate in extremely high risk
and frequently tested prisoners in South African
prisons. The prison population comprises intravenous
drug users and men who have sex with men without
condoms. Given that these prisoners are all tested every
Volume 3, Issue 9
NEWSLETTER
October 2008
FEATURED ARTICLES
The Afrikan Traditional Herbal Research Centre
Progress Report
Nakato Lewis
Blackherbals at the Source of the Nile, UG Ltd.
October 2008
The concept of indigenous or local traditional
knowledge refers to the complete bodies of knowledge,
expertise, practices and technology, maintained and
developed by people with long histories of close
interaction with the natural environment. These sets of
understandings, interpretations and meanings are part
of a cultural complex that includes language, naming
and classification systems, ways of using and recycling
resources, rituals, spirituality and a worldview. Such
knowledge provides the basis for local decision-making
about many fundamental aspects of day-to-day life
within these societies, such as hunting and gathering
food, fishing, agriculture and animal husbandry, food
production, water, health, and adaptation to
environmental or social change.
As in all traditional societies, Afrikan people have
evolved sophisticated realms of knowledge, derived
from experimentation or observation to explain,
predict, and control natural phenomena. This
indigenous knowledge often appears to differ from-or
even run counter to-the scientific principles taught by
colonial powers. Evidence of Afrika's store of
indigenous scientific knowledge has emerged recently
in a variety of disciplines. For example, living on the
desert's edge, Afrika's nomadic pastoralists are
acknowledged to be among the world's experts on
famine and range management. The thousand-year-old
cultures living south of Timbuktu along the Niger River
in Mali consult written texts that we appreciate today,
as a model of environmental conservation. Afrika's
traditional plant breeders cultivated tropical gardens
that contain as many as 150 intercropped species and
recognition is given to the Afrikan for the development
of a remarkably productive agricultural system. The
continent's materia medica of more than 7,000 animal,
plant, and mineral products for the treatment of illness
is a resource that western-trained scientists are avidly
copying and studying.
Seldom documented, Afrikan indigenous knowledge
(AIK) is passed orally from generation to generation.
Unfortunately, scientific awareness of the value of
Afrikan indigenous knowledge is growing at a time
when such knowledge is under tremendous threat. It is
in danger of disappearing, as a result of the evergrowing Western influences for rapid technological
change and because the capacity and facilities needed
to document, evaluate, validate, protect and disseminate
such knowledge are lacking. For this situation to
change, infrastructures, facilities, research, and
financial resources are needed. More research needs to
be done on AIK systems and more methods developed
for dealing with it. Afrikan claims of indigenous
solutions to specific problems by indigenous
knowledge systems need to be validated and attempts
made to improve or adapt those systems. This research
should be conducted with people who possess the
indigenous knowledge and with the local communities
involved. There are signs of a growing demand for
education systems in Afrika, tailored to local needs. It
is these efforts that are providing increased attention to
knowledge systems based in local traditions and
cultures and the need to revitalise these systems from
an educational point of view.
Importance of Indigenous Knowledge
In the past, modern science has considered methods of
Afrikan indigenous knowledge as primitive. Many
traditional practices, during the colonial period, were
declared illegal by the colonial authorities. However,
AIK has made and continues to make significant
contributions to resolving local problems. From
developing countries worldwide an increasing flow of
information is being transmitted and the role that
indigenous knowledge plays in a range of sectors.
Besides alleviating poverty, this range includes such
sectors as agriculture (intercropping techniques, animal
Continued from page 25 –The Afrikan Traditional Herbal
Research Centre
production, pest control, crop diversity, animal
healthcare, seed varieties), biology (botany, fish
breeding techniques), human healthcare (through
traditional medicine), the use and management of
natural resources (soil conservation, irrigation and other
forms of water management), and education (oral
traditions, local languages).
Furthermore, through modern ethno-botanical research,
indigenous knowledge is contributing to science in
fields relevant to natural resource management. In
particular, indigenous knowledge helps scientists
understand the issues of biodiversity and natural forest
management provide insights into crop domestication,
breeding and management, and gives scientists a new
appreciation of the principles and practices of 'slashand-burn' techniques in agriculture, agro-ecology, agroforestry, crop rotation, pest and soil management, and
other areas of agricultural science.
One of the major prerequisites for the entire process of
collecting, applying and disseminating indigenous
knowledge is the full participation of the local people
involved. Full participation can be achieved only when
the local communities are able to participate on an
equal level. Capacity building is therefore a key issue,
and vital if traditional knowledge systems are to receive
the active support to sustain them. Capacity building
must include training to better equip indigenous people
and young scientists to carry out research on traditional
knowledge, and to promote and develop that research to
better appreciate traditional knowledge. This can be
achieved through collaborations between national
governments and Afrikan organisations and by placing
indigenous knowledge on the agenda of science for
development in general.
Afrika is a natural treasure house, endowed with
wonderful examples of physical and cultural diversity.
Afrika is also a laboratory for studying the boundaries
between modern scientific methods and technologies
and traditional practices. Indigenous knowledge has a
trans-generational, communal, spiritual and cultural
nature. Western science is based solely on
technological aspects of the physical world. Indigenous
knowledge and western science should be seen as two
systems of knowledge that can supplement, rather than
compete with each other.
Traditional Agriculture
Traditional farming is an important reserve and source
of biodiversity. It is still perhaps the only sustainable
system. Ancient farmers developed sustainable agriculture practices, which allowed them to produce food -
and fiber for thousands of years with few if any outside
inputs. Many of these practices have been forgotten or
abandoned in developed countries, but have continued
to be used by many traditional, subsistence, or partially
subsistence farmers in developing countries. Most
traditional methods of agriculture were developed
empirically, through millennia of trial and error, natural
selection, and keen observation. Some of these
practices, which often conserve energy, maintain
natural resources, and reduce chemical use, are worthy
of examination. Today over half of the worlds' arable
land is farmed by traditional farmers. Many of their
techniques are unknown or poorly understood, but have
allowed them to produce crops and animals with
minimal or no purchased inputs. Traditional farming
systems
often
resemble
natural
tropical
agroecosystems. This and their striking diversity give
them a high degree of stability, resilience, and
efficiency.
Traditional farming, however, is being replaced by
modern intensive farming systems in many parts of the
world. This represents the loss of farming systems that
are stable, sustainable and from which many valuable
lessons can be learned. Although high yields of modern
intensive agriculture have made it possible to feed the
ever-increasing human population, it has been
accomplished at the expense and to the destruction of
the surrounding ecosystems. Traditional agricultural
practices must be understood and conserved, before
they are lost through the rapid advance of modern
agriculture in developing countries.
They are fertilizing the Earth on a global scale through
intensive agriculture, fossil fuel combustion and
widespread cultivation of leguminous crops. Evidence
is growing that the use of huge additional quantities of
nitrogen are exacerbating acidification, causing
changes in the species composition of ecosystems. It
also raises nitrate levels in freshwater supplies above
acceptable limits for human consumption, producing an
aquatic environment that favours plant over animal life
in many freshwater habitats. Pesticide use causes the
acute poisoning of 3.5 to 5 million people a year.
Worldwide, 400 million tonnes of hazardous waste are
being generated each year. About 75 per cent of
pesticide use and hazardous waste generation occurs in
developed countries. Despite restrictions on toxic and
persistent chemicals such as DDT, PCBs and dioxin in
many developed countries, manufacturing of these
chemicals continues for export and remains widely
used in developing countries.
Microbial food-borne illnesses are the largest class of
emerging infectious diseases. The use of antibiotics and
Continued from page 26 - The Afrikan Traditional Herbal
Research Centre
hormones in agriculture is growing. Their prolonged
use on farm animals has resulted in cancerous tumours
and unmanageable bacterial and viral infections in
animals. Of particular concern, are the antibiotics and
hormones fed each year to hogs, chickens, and cattle,
specifically designed to reduce their bacterial
populations and promote faster growth for food
production. A major important fact is that the bacteria
these antibiotics are designed to destroy are growing
increasingly resistant to antibiotics and at a faster pace
than if these antibiotics were used only to treat animals
diagnosed with disease. This has created super-bugs
and super infections in human and animals.
Multinational corporations use genetic engineering to
monopolize the seed supply and raise the cost of
farming so that the western global agricultural industry
can consolidate its control worldwide. Traditional
farmers support billions of people on the planet by
saving seeds from crops and replanting these seeds the
following year. Most farmers cannot afford to buy new
seeds every year, so collecting and replanting seeds is a
crucial part of the agricultural cycle. Food has been
grown successfully this way for thousands of years.
The existence of genetically engineered crops goes
against all the natural laws of nature, producing toxic
reactions as well as food allergies. The safety of their
long-term use is not established. Many research studies
show that genetically engineered plants can harm
wildlife and sensitive ecological systems, which Afrika
must guard against.
Genetically modified material contaminates more than
two-thirds of conventional crops in the United States,
dooming organic agriculture and posing a severe future
risk to health. Because of the contamination, farmers
unknowingly plant billions of GM seeds a year,
spreading genetic modification throughout North
American agriculture. This will become even more of a
danger to health with the next generation of GM crops,
bred to produce pharmaceuticals and industrial
chemicals. Trade in genetically engineered food, crops
and microorganisms is dominated by a handful of
multinational corporations, the same corporations
involved in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals,
nutraceuticals, pesticides, herbicides and other
chemicals.
Today, most commercial farms are depleted of
nutrients and natural soil organisms. Due to the
convenience of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and
pesticides, farmers no longer need to rotate their crops,
which now grow faster and are accompanied by greater
yields per season. If problems develop, they just add
more man-made chemicals, a poison or a stimulant, to
their crops. The soil on many commercially farms has
become so unnatural that it no longer holds water
normally and even requires more water, which contribute
to waste and further leeching of nutrients from the soil.
Many farmers no longer bother to develop mulch or plow
old crops back into the soil. Pesticides destroy most of
the living organisms in the soil, thus old crops cannot be
transformed into beneficial soil.
Traditional agriculture methods, such as cross-pollination
or selective breeding, are based on natural reproductive
mechanisms. These traditional methods will cross only
one kind of plant or animal with a similar species. Fruits
and vegetables grown organically show significantly
higher levels of cancer-fighting antioxidants than
modernly grown foods. Consumer interest in organic
foods, produced without the use of pesticides, chemicals
or genetic engineering, has ballooned in recent years due
to increasing concerns about health and food safety.
Researchers are beginning to appreciate that many
traditional farmers in the developing world are still
practicing farming methods that are in balance with the
surrounding ecosystems, stable, sustainable and highly
efficient. Portrayed as ignorant and not adaptive,
traditional farmers have actually been utilizing very
sophisticated methods of agricultural production for
centuries. These farming systems can perhaps help the
developed world to grow food with fewer chemical
inputs, slow erosion, control pests, decrease our
dependence on fossil fuels and feed an expanding global
population.
The challenge for the future is how to increase yields in
traditional systems while retaining a certain measure of
their integrity, in other words, to finds methods of
sustainable intensification. Conversely, we need to
integrate biological diversity into existing modern
commercial agricultural systems in developed countries.
There is evidence that the adoption of traditional
conservation methods on large commercial farms can
promote biological diversity (*FAO, 1996). Techniques
such as crop rotation, intercropping, cover crops,
integrated pest management, and green manures can be
adapted for use in larger commercial systems. These
practices can reduce dependence on fertilizers and
pesticides and promote sustainable intensification. An
integration of farming systems, combining the
productivity of modern systems and the sustainability of
traditional systems, could help to preserve biological
diversity and feed a growing population without
excessive damage to the environment.
Traditional Medicine Playing
Important Role - Nduhura
for enhancing Research and Development in traditional
medicine.
Uganda joins other African countries to commemorate
the 5th African Traditional Medicine ay. The theme for
this year is ‘Research & Development of Traditional
Medicine in WHO African Region’.
The Ministry of Health pledges its total support to all
Scientists and Natural Chemotherapeutics Research
Laboratory in particular for their effort in Research and
Development of traditional medicine. A number of
herbal formulations are being standardized to ensure
that they are safe and efficacious. The Natural
Chemotherapeutics Research Laboratory has managed
to identify the research priorities in traditional medicine
which is inline with Health Sector Strategic Plan.
In Uganda and the rest of Africa, traditional medicine
continues to play a very important role in health care
delivery for primary health care. A large number of the
population in Uganda tends to rely on traditional
medicine and this has resulted in the tremendous rise in
number of people using traditional medicine countrywide.
As we commemorate this day therefore I call upon all
scientists to embrace Research and Development of
traditional medicine. This will add value to our natural
products and herbal medicines for fulfilling the
growing needs in quality and safety in natural products.
We also need to ensure that our natural resources are
conserved as we develop traditional medicine.
Therefore, pharmaceutical companies, traditional health
practitioners, conventional health practitioners have a lot
to benefit in traditional medicine (herbal medicine) if
Research and Development is embraced. This is an area
Uganda has a competitive advantage. The government of
Uganda is encouraging investment in this sector in order
to create employment for scientific innovators.
The World Health Organization (WHO) observes this
day on every 31 of August. However, in Uganda, this
day for this year will be observed in November 2007.
The Republic of Uganda
Daily Monitor
November 6, 2007
The role of research and development in traditional
medicine in Uganda is very important. There is great
need for scientists and researchers to carry out
comprehensive research and development of traditional
medicine to ensure that validated and standardized
products are used in health delivery systems. Most of our
herbal formulations are not standardized to meet the
minimum national requirement for registration with
National Drug Authority.
Public and private collaboration is crucial in the
development of traditional medicine in Uganda. The
Government of Uganda has come out strongly to support
science based courses at the universities and science
based researches. The millennium science initiative under
Uganda National Science Council for Science and
Technology is one among the many examples of
Government initiatives to support research and
development. This is an opportunity for all the
stakeholders in traditional medicine to encourage our
young scientists to get involved in research and
development.
The Ministry of Health public private partnership policy
for Health is intended to streamline research and
development of traditional medicine. The National policy
on Traditional and Complimentary Medicine (TCM) is
due to be tabled to cabinet. This Policy forms background
I wish all Ugandans joyous celebration of the 5th
African Traditional Medicine Day.
FOR GOD AND MY COUNTRY
Minister of State for Health General Duties,
Honorable Richard Nduhura
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Enhancing Research in the
WHO African Region
Research and Development of Traditional
Medicine in the WHO African Region
Daily Monitor
November 6, 2007
In Africa, close to 80% of the population continue to
rely on traditional medicine for health delivery. In most
cases traditional medicines has been found within
reach, easy access and with minimal side effects.
However this is not to say it’s free from unwanted side
effects. Lack of proper standards for herbal medicines
has affected its integration into the National health care
delivery systems for African countries including
Uganda. The Natural Chemotherapeutics Research
Laboratory (NCRL) is faced with challenges of
evaluating large numbers of herbal medicines locally
used in order to justify their therapeutic claims as well
as demonstrate their clinical efficacy.
While herbal medicine is useful, it poses lots of chal-
Continued from page 28 – Enhancing Research in the WHO
Africa Region
and 26th July 2007 was a great land mark in the history
of NAPRECA, Uganda.
lenges for example, safety and efficacy before it can
sustainably be integrated into the health care delivery
systems. This is the reason the World Health
Organisation (WHO) has strongly come out to support a
number of countries with Research and Development
guidelines in traditional medicine.
The NCRL was privileged to be treated to a presymposium activity that revived research and
development in the light of hinging on
ethnopharmacology and the need to be proactive to
environmental issues. All these are to ensure a
successful future in research and development in
natural products.
There is also added financial support from WHO for
institutions to develop policies on traditional medicine
and clinically validate herbal therapies.
Despite the challenges, NCRL has been at the forefront of
Research and Development of herbal medicine in
Uganda. A number of herbal formulations are being
standardized to ensure that they are safe and efficacious
and thereafter be considered for registration with
National Drug Authority (NDA).
The Network on Medicinal Plants and Traditional
Medicine Project with a Secretariat at NCRL, supported
by International Development Research Centre (IDRC),
Ottawa, Canada has also assessed current research
activities on medicinal plants and traditional medicine in
E. Africa, identified the research priorities in medicinal
plants and traditional medicine, enhanced research
capacities and harmonized research approaches and
methodologies for sustainable management of medicinal
plants. The project has promoted collaborative research
projects in medicinal plants and traditional medicine
within the E. African countries and strengthened the
capacity of traditional health practitioners in Research
and Development in traditional medicine.
A meeting on the institutionalization of the Network
within the Lake Victoria Basin Commission (LVBC) of
the East Africa Community was held in Kampala in
September 2007. It was attended by representatives from
the LBVC, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
It was recommended that the Network evolves into a
partnership in order to carry out activities identified in the
strategic framework of Network of Medicinal Plants and
Traditional Medicine (EA). The LVBC is ready to
embrace the Network if it evolved into a partnership and
this will also bring in Rwanda and Burundi as they are
now members of the East African Community. The
recently conclude Natural Product Research in East and
Central Africa (NAPRECA) Conference threw light on
recent advancement in Natural Product Research and
Development. This conference was able to revive hope
about the possible cures of the forgotten or neglected
tropical diseases for example, trypanosomiasis,
onchorcirciasis, etc from our biodiversity. The meeting of
great renowned scientists in such a high profile
conference hosted by Makerere University between 22nd
Through the above theme, NCRL will strengthen
Research and Development of herbal medicines in the
country though wider institutional collaborations with
other institutions e.g., Uganda Industrial Research
Institute, National Drug Authority, Uganda National
Council for Science and Technology, Uganda National
Bureau of Standards, Uganda Export Promotion Board,
Uganda Investment Authority and a number of
academic Research Institutions.
Currently with collaboration with National Drug
Authority, some of the herbal formulae are to be
registered and these products will be able to be sold in
pharmacies and drug shops around the country. In
addition, a number of private investors have started to
invest in herbal pharmaceutical processing of local
herbal products which range from decoction, infusions,
syrups , cosmetics and many others,
The former National Enterprise Corporation now NECHealthworld Ltd is due to commence manufacture of
some of the herbal products in Uganda.
Many local and international private investors have
contacted NCRL and Ministry of Health to discuss
issues of partnership in research and development of
herbal medicine. These among other include Republic
of North Korea, China, Egypt, Iran and countries within
the East African region.
The Government is currently in the final stages of
developing the National Policy on Traditional and
Complimentary Medicine (TCM) and soon to discuss
the traditional medicine practice Bill as developed by
Law Reform Commission in 2002 that will regulate
practice of traditional medicine and bring it to national
and internationally acceptable standards. The policy
and bill are waiting input from stakeholders before the
bill is tabled to cabinet. The Ministry of Health through
support from World Health Organization and
collaboration with stakeholders is also developing code
of ethics for the tradition healing practice. The TCM
Policy, Traditional Medicine Practice Bill and Code of
Ethics for Traditional Medicine will stream-line
Research and Development in Traditional medicine.
Continued from age 29 – Enhancing Research in the WHO
African Region
As a constituent sector of the proposed Uganda National
Health Research Organization (UNHRO), NCRL is to
become a Research Institute for Traditional and
Complimentary Medicine (RITCOM). It will therefore
have a wider mandate to encompass; agronomy, product
development, legal and social aspects as a holistic
approach to research and development in traditional
medicine and healing practices.
With this year’s theme for the 5th ATM celebrations,
stakeholders in traditional medicine will be able to do
research and development in traditional medicine by;
•
Adding value to natural products (herbal
medicines) as well as promote investment in this
sector thus support the Poverty Eradication
Action Plan (PEAP) and Plan for Modernization
of agriculture (PMA) policies
•
Improving conservation of natural resources for
their sustainable utilization.
•
Improving livelihood of the poor people by
ensuring that they are healthy.
•
Strengthen the capacity of individuals and local
enterprises in research and development in her
medicines.
•
Ensuring that herbal medicines are standardized
to meet the minimum requirement for
registration and acceptability in the National
health care delivery system.
Natural Chemotherapeutic Research Laboratory is very
grateful to WHO, IDRC and other donor partners for the
financial support to te government of Uganda for Resarch
and development of traditional medicine in Uganda.
Natural Chemotherapeutics Research Laboratory would
like to wish everybody a successful celebration to mark
the 5th African Traditional Medicine Day.
☻☻☻☻☻☻
More Herbal Medicines Flood
the Ugandan Market
Stella Nakakande
Daily Monitor
March 22, 2008
Armed with the art of psychology, witchdoctors devised
ways to ensure that the secret of their non-possession of
supernatural powers would be known only to a few
trusted practitioners,” writes Br. Anatoli Wasswa of the
Banakaloli Brothers in his book Unveiling Witchcraft. Br.
Wasswa is a traditional herbalist.
In Uganda, herbalists are frequently confused with
traditional healers commonly known as witchdoctors.
Herbalists are often criticized because of the negativity
the latter portray. They on the other hand insist that their
approach to disease treatment is scientific with no
mystical power to their medicine.
According to Mr Elijah Ntege, they like in modern
science, have laboratories where they carry out tests to
ascertain the nutrient content of leaves, animal bones,
ash, soil and their curative powers in relation to the
disease.
Traditional medicine is at the core of the matter. In many
places in the country are structures with posts reading
Herbal Research Clinic. These have been on the rise
lately; you are often lost for choice in places like Katwe
where every shop has this label.
And like it is said, necessity is the mother of invention;
the initiator of al this research seems to have been the
HIV/Aids epidemic in the early 90s.
Dr. Abubakar Rasid Lukwago of the Dr. Yakubu
Lukwago Herbal Research clinic in Kasubi says that his
late father, Dr Rashid Lukwago who focused on HIV
treatment, founded the clinic in 1990 on William Street.
“It begun in 1990 with the onset of the HIV epidemic,”
he explains, adding that “our father was mainly handling
people living with the virus mainly.”
These doctors are true medical personnel as per the
public eye. They wear white clinical coats, examine
patients, and prescribe doses; the clinics are jammed with
patients seeking healing for their ailments. They are even
referred to as “doctor”; you do not have to swear by the
‘Hippocratic oath’ after all to earn the title.
Nonetheless, what is traditional medicine all about and
why is the herbal research sector suddenly mushrooming?
Based on Research
Dr Yakubu Lukwago explains that theirs is treatment and
research that has grown over the years. “We have moved
on from HIV/Aids treatment we can now handle all
disease apart from cancer and sickle cells where we can
only offer tranquilizers since these have no cure.”
“We even check for UTI, which is by far the commonest
infection in women,” he as.
When it comes to HIV, Dr. Lukwago says, they have the
right medicine to boost the immunity and get rid of
unwanted symptoms like lip ulcers commonly called “red
lips”, loss of appetite, chronic diarrhoea, Herpes Zoster
(kisippi) and cough among others. For the lip ulcers and
Continued from page 30 – More Herbal Medicines Flood the
Ugandan Market
Herpes Zoster, the clinic has a powder and medicated
Vaseline applied on the infected area.
“It takes five to seven days for these to disappear,” he
clarifies.
“They even have antibiotics for cough infection as a
result of Tuberculosis.
The authenticity of all this of course can only be proved
by the user although one wonders why these medicines
have no names. In Kamengo Herbal Research Clinic in
Katwe, every bottle has a label of the diseases treated
apart from that containing medicine for HIV/Aids. The
attendant knows it by the liquid’s colour perhaps and its
positioning on the shelves. Like ARVs, one should never
run out of stock of this, the doctors tell me.
Mysterious
They are also hesitant to reveal the contents of their
medicine. “We mix a couple of things,” they say. For
each disease, there is a complex set of ingredients. The
contents are given names like “red liquid” or “black
powder”. The source of these is also mysterious.
“We get trees from Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Somalia,
Tanzania and so many other countries,” Dr. Lukwago
says when asked to explain their origin and names. “We
name the species ourselves so they have no definite
naming.”
To an onlooker, it is as if they are reluctant to reveal their
“magic mixtures”; they want to stay around much longer
and no kind of coercion is enough to make them name
these species.
They will only restrict themselves to the ingredients
noting that the main composition of red liquid is
magnesium, zinc and potassium required to boost one’s
immunity. The explanation ends there.
More interestingly, these herbalists have scientific labs
not only for research but also for analysis of one’s health.
They, like with modern medicine, diagnose and check for
the disease, before any prescription is made.
Prices range from Shs4,000 to Shs70,000 for the CD4
count performed for people living with HIV. They also
have pregnancy tests.
Interestingly though, only one of these herbalists, Elijah
Ntege of the Babakaloli Brothers said they do not offer
HIV/Aids treatment. “What should we treat in HIV?’ he
wondered.
Well, that begs the question, what do others treat?
Have You Tried Something
Herbal?
Rachel Kabejjaa
Sunday Monitor
July 12, 2008
More people are turning their attention to
medicine, herbal or natural beauty
supplements, and home remedies because
been discovered to be an effective means
ailments and barely have side effects.
alternative
products,
they have
of curbing
When it comes to beauty solutions, herbal alternatives
are made from natural products. These products are
always less or unprocessed hence making them suitable
for all skin types. For ages, our great grandparents lived
on such products and they were healthy and looked
good like the Egyptians for instance and used herbs like
fenugreek and roses to prevent wrinkles.
Then processed cosmetics became popular only for
table to turn again to herbal solutions hence the boom
of both international and local industries manufacturing
herbal jellies like Samona and Movit herbal jellies,
soaps creams, massage and aromatherapy oils, beauty
spas, reflexology, bath gels, moisturizers and herbal
powder containing natural combination of neem tree,
basil flowers, aloe Vera, oregano, lavender and other
naturals. Studies have found that aloe Vera which is a
popular ingredient in herbal products has antimicrobial,
anti-inflammatory, an immune-stimulating actions as
well as large quantities of vitamins E and C, zinc, and
amino acids.
Thus the healing properties of this traditional plant
have finally been isolated. Dr Liu Zheng of Natural
Chinese Herbal and Acupuncture Clinic Kira road says
that herbal products are also cost friendly and don’t
have animal products hence causing less or no
irritations to the skin.
Herbal beauty products also come with advantages like
being easy to prepare, are readily available even in your
home compounds. They have no known side effects
and (with some exception) are absolutely safe even for
prolonged use, and they can bring long lasting results
and
even
complete
healing
according
to
www.theherbalbeauty.com. The biggest known
disadvantage is that some treatments may take months,
even years, depending on the problem, for complete
healing. However, the first results usually show after
10-14 days, which gives sufferers a reason to continue
with the treatment.
☻☻☻☻☻☻
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Ugandans Now Live Up to 50
Years – Report
This growth has been mainly attributed to good policies
and governance, which the report says “matter a great
deal.”
Peter Nyanzi
Ms Obiageli Ezekwesili, the World Bank Vice
President for Africa Region said over the past 10 years
Africa has recorded an average growth rate of 5.4 per
cent “which is at par with the rest of the world” but that
the ability to support, sustain and diversify the sources
of these growth indicators “would be critical not only to
Africa’s capacity to meet the MDGs but also to
becoming an exciting investment destination for global
capital.”
Daily Monitor
November 20, 2007
Uganda is one of only two countries that have made the
greatest gains in improving life expectancy in the last 10
years, a new World Bank report has shown.
According to the African Development Indicators (ADI)
2007 that was released last week, the life expectancy of
Ugandans has now climbed by seven years to 50, up from
just 43 in 200l.
With Tanzania behind at 46.3 and Kenya at 49.0, Uganda
is now the only country above the 50 mark in the Great
Lakes region and therefore the best country for those who
want to live a bit longer.
Ugandan mothers also have a better chance to survive
during pregnancy with a maternal mortality ratio of
880:100,000 live births compared to Tanzania’s
1,500:100,000 and Kenya’s 1,000:100,000.
But the situation is not as good for children under-five
with a mortality rate of 136:1,000 live births compared to
Kenya’s 120:1,000 and Tanzania’s 122:1,000.
Generally, the report says because of HIV/Aids, TB,
malaria, and other diseases, improvements in life
expectancy have stalled in some countries and retreated
in a few others.
Uganda is also largely lagging behind in adult literacy
rates with only 57 per cent of females able to read and
write compared to Tanzania’s 62.2 per cent and Kenya’s
70 per cent.
The report says poor health and poor schooling hold back
improvements in people’s productivity and the chances of
meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Malaria is still a big concern in the region with
152/100,000 Ugandans dying of the disease compared to
Kenya’s 63/100,000 and Tanzania’s 130/100,000 people.
But the report is generally positive about growth
prospects for Africa where about 41 per cent of the
people still live on less than $1 (Shs1,700) a day. On the
continent, Uganda is listed as second among the countries
with the largest proportion of people living in the rural
areas (87.4 per cent) next to Burundi (90 per cent).
The report says after years of stop-and-start results, many
African economies “appear to be growing at the fast and
steady rates needed to put a dent in the region’s high
poverty rate and attract global investment.”
The report says Africa now enjoys better growth
prospects because the leaders have under taken major
reforms over the past decade. But it decries the
negligible role the private sector has played in
improving the living conditions of the citizen.
It says accelerating and sustaining growth requires
improving Africa’s investment climate, spurring
innovation, and building institutional capacity to
govern well.
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Continued from page 21 - Scientists Map
Genomes of Malaria Parasites
Some of its genes closely resemble a human gene
involved in regulation of the immune system.
The World Health Organization said malaria killed
881,000 people and infected 247 million people
worldwide in 2006, the latest year for which figures
were available. Some malaria experts say those
numbers underestimate the problem.
Most deaths occur in Africa and are caused by the
Plasmodium falciparum parasite, whose genome was
mapped in 2002.
The researchers found the vivax genome was similar in
many ways to the falciparum parasite, meaning that
certain vaccine approaches being tried against the
African parasite may be worth trying against this one.
"During the course of evolution, malaria parasites have
devised different tricks to avoid being detected and
dampen the host immune responses," Pain said by email.
"Thus, it has been rather difficult to find a single
parasite protein that could be used as an effective
vaccine candidate which would provide effective and
long-term protection against all parasite strains
circulating within a given population at a given time,"
he said.
☻☻☻☻☻☻
NEWSLETTER
October 2008
FEATURED ARTICLES
Unified Field Theory of Disease and Nutritional Causation or
Predispositions
Volume 3, Issue 9
Professor Charles Ssali
Mariandina Nutritional Health Products
Disease is any type of disorder or body function which
is a result of:
1. Bacterial, viral, fungal infection.
2. Degenerative change in cells.
3. Congenital and Hereditary.
All can be traced back to some nutritional deficit. All
diseases would be eliminated from man if the victim
were to be fed on a properly balanced diet right from
the moment of conception. The development of a
fertilised egg into a fetus depends on the availability of
nutrients to power and nourish the developing fetus.
These nutrients act as free radical scavengers to protect
the body cells from the harmful effects of free radicals
that come out of body metabolism. The free radicals are
capable of disrupting fetal development. The invasion
of body tissues by bacteria, viruses and fungus is
dependent on the absence of enough nutrients to
strengthen the immune system, which mops up the
organisms. The free radicals are the ones which
promote the reproduction of all the invading organisms
and in turn the organisms promote the production of
free radicals.
It is obvious that even congenital or developmental
abnormalities can be traced back to nutrition. Nutrition
may be affected by the use of toxic substances or drugs
that affect cell division leading to abnormalities and
congenital defects. One such chemical is thalidomide
and the virus called rubella. All these lead to birth
degenerative diseases like diabetes, asthma,
vascular/heart diseases are all traceable to some
nutritional deficit, which causes the cell death in the
organs concerned. The pancreas loses the ability to
secrete insulin as a result of the degeneration of the
cells in the islets of langerhans. These specialist cells
die as a result of a nutrition lacking in vitamins and
minerals. Taking white sugar from which molasses
containing vitamins and minerals are removed during
processing leads to one such ways by which diabetes
develops. When these nutrients are supplied to the
person with diabetes, the situation improves rapidly
back to normal.
All body cells develop from what are called stem cells
in the embryonic stage. A stem cell requires proper
nutrition as found in vegetable foods in their original
unprocessed state in order to develop with the adult
specialised cells as you find in various body organs like
the brain, liver, glands, skin, muscle, bones, intestinal
and respiratory tracts. The lack of liberal supplies of
these nutrients we find in fruits and vegetables creates a
deficiency in the availability of vitamins like A, B, C
etc, minerals like iron, zinc, selenium etc, besides plant
hormones, enzymes and chlorophyll all of which play
an important role in the proper development and
specialisation of body cells. Examples of congenital
defects that can be traced back to nutrition include,
heart defects, spina bifida, missing limbs,
hydrocephalus and many others. A liberal supply of
vitamins and minerals are vital in this respect.
Infections of the mother during pregnancy include
viruses like rubella which only occur where antiviral
nutrients like vitamin A, C and E are in short supply.
The virus disrupts the proper cell divisions required to
complete some body organs like the heart etc.
The immune system which protects us from all
infections depends on nutrition to produce antibodies
and the necessary defence cells like macrophages and
lymphocytes. Any deficiency in the necessary nutrients
results in weakening of the immune system which is
followed by an invasion of the body of bacteria viruses,
fungus and even degeneration of body cells. Nutrients
help the body to clean itself by mopping up free
radicals that we produce during cellular metabolism.
These free radicals include hydrogen peroxide, which
attacks cell structures if left in position for too long. It
can attack vital structures like the cell membrane, the
nucleus and mitochondria. The damage they inflict on
the cells is what can cause conditions like diabetes
Continued from page 33– Unified Theory of Disease…
when insulin secreting cells (islets of langerhans ) die in
increasing numbers till it results in insulin deficiency
called diabetes. When nutrients are replenished, the cells
regenerate and diabetes can be cured. The same occurs in
other body cells where cancer occurs because of the
destruction of mitochondria making metabolism using
oxidation of glucose impossible for lack of the necessary
enzymes in the mitochondria (KREB’S cycle) which
power the process. This leads the cells to generate heat
energy using fermentation processes and the production
of lactic acid. This is the way cancer occurs in body
tissues like in the breasts, uterus, lungs, glands and other
tissues.
The cure for cancer must therefore address this anomaly
by reconstructing the damaged cell structures and
restoring
normal
body
metabolism.
Powerful
antioxidants, which act as free radical scavengers in the
affected parts of the body help the tissues to detoxify
itself and prevent further cell, damage from free radicals.
The oxygen that is released by hydrogen peroxide can
attack cell structures and cause the equivalent of iron rust
in the body. In situations like these, one requires to drink
a lot of water in order to enable the kidneys to excrete
those impurities from the blood circulation where they
may continue causing traumatic effects on tissues. Water
is an essential part of our nutritional requirements. If the
body is denied water supply, it deteriorates rapidly
because of dehydration and accumulation of toxic
impurities. These impurities which accumulate in tissues
cause body damage by depleting the supplies of nutrients
from the food taken in daily. The ageing process is
perpetuated by this growing nutritional deficit. As we
grow we cut down on our intake of the essential nutrients
of vitamins and minerals. The sum total of the nutritional
deficiency and chronic dehydration is the progressive
ageing process we observe in everyday life. In such a
situation the body cells fail to reproduce themselves as
they should by replacing themselves with identical
copies. This is why the hair begins to lose pigmentation
and becomes gray and the skin loses its elasticity,
eventually becoming rough and wrinkled. This is the
reason why cancer incidence increases with age or
pollution in the internal and external environment. If we
look after ourselves properly by taking a well balanced
diet consisting of unprocessed fresh vegetables and fruits,
then drink the required amounts of water, then we would
be able to maintain our health status close to ideal for
many years.
Medicinal herbs are no more than foods with the required
nutrients to correct the cellular nutritional deficiency that
led to the diseased state. The use of Contraceptive pills,
over use of antibiotics and smoking are some of the forms
of drug abuse which drain heavily on nutrients because of
the increased need for detoxification. This is the reason
why those who indulge in such practices develop cancer
of the breast, lungs, uterus and prostate. Others develop
diabetes, Asthma and blood pressure because of the
nutritional deficit created by the increase in the demand
for nutrients for the detoxification of free radicals.
A disease state like AIDS is a complex manifestation of
nutritional deficiencies that include vitamins, minerals,
plant hormones, amino acids and enzymes. The body
needs plant ingredients found in leafy vegetables e.g.
chlorophyll, lecithin and many others. The HIV invades
the body by penetrating its cells which are deficient in
nutrients and abounding in free radicals. This window of
opportunity occurs in all people who indulge in junk
foods, drug abuse, over use of antibiotics, fizzy drinks
with artificial sweeteners. These factors depress the
immune system allowing the virus to successfully
establish itself in the body. If the free radicals are
regularly mopped up using the free radical scavengers
called antioxidants as found in fresh fruit and vegetables,
then the virus and cancer cells are eliminated by the
power of the immune system.
During sexual union the male partner ejaculates about 2
mls of semen which carry the male spermatozoa. This
semen also carries with it nutrients to be used by the
sperm and the early embryo. To collect these nutrients in
the semen, one pint of the male partner’s blood is
stripped of all these elements which include vitamins,
minerals, enzymes, hormones etc, etc. Repeated
ejaculations can deplete the male partner’s blood of
essential elements required by his immune system. The
result of such a situation is to make him vulnerable to
infections like viruses and STDs including HIV. This is
the reason why promiscuous males may easily develop
AIDS which means Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome. Semen is rich in zinc and selenium both of
which are very important for strengthening immunity by
providing it with specialised cells called T helper
lymphocytes. These T helper lymphocytes go through the
thymus gland which prepares them for the battlefield
capability against virus invaders. The thymus gland
requires a lot of zinc to do the job. Selenium is needed to
make the body’s antioxidant called glutathione
peroxidase. This natural antioxidant is very important in
clearing out hydrogen peroxide from the body cells. A
diet rich in these nutrients will play an important role in
protecting us against all infections and cancer. The
prostrate gland in the male is the equivalent of the uterus
in the female. Both these organs are prone to developing
cancer if nutrition is deficient in these essential elements
among others.
On the other hand, female partners stand to gain nutrients
Continued from page 34 – Unified Theory of Disease……
which are drained out of the male partner’s blood. Most
of the semen’s essential ingredients are absorbed into the
female circulation through the birth canal. This provides
her with the elements mentioned above for added
protection against nutritional deficiency diseases that
come as a result of a weakened immune system. This
explanation could account for the survival phenomenon
observed among professional female sex workers in
Kenya and Uganda. These prostitutes have been found to
survive HIV infection despite their risk factors. It has also
been observed that these sex workers begin to succumb to
HIV/AIDS when they retire from their profession. This
would eliminate the original theory that they have a
special genetic make up that protects them against HIV. I
am of the opinion that it is the constant liberal supply of
essential nutrients that boosts their immunity to the
optimum levels capable to resisting STDs.
Herpes Zoster which is a result of chickenpox virus
manifesting itself as blisters on the skin is another
example of the power of the immune system. This virus
only surfaces when the body is malnourished and
immune deficient. The development of cancer cells starts
when the natural killer cells that hunt and destroy them
are weakened by poor nutrition. This poor nutrition may
be a result of ingesting overwhelming amounts of toxic
substances that require large amounts of nutrients to
excrete through the kidneys. If such nutrients are not
available then the immune system is weakened and the
natural killer cells fail to cope with the cancer cell
development in the tissues. This if kept up for long
enough, then the particular site develops cancer. These
toxic substances like aspartame (Nutrasweet), contraceptive pills, radioactive materials, alcohol, hydrocarbons,
asbestos etc, etc. These elements cause the production of
free radicals to rise and stagnate in tissues. This
stagnation leads to the damage of cell wall, DNA cross
links and mitochondria structural damage. This DNA
damage leads to genetic mutation and cancer changes.
The damage to mitochondria structure leads to the failure
of the cell to metabolise glucose using oxygen. As a
result of this failure, the cell turns to fermentation to
produce heat energy with the production of a toxic lactic
acid. This is what cancer cells do. They multiply
uncontrollably and destroy normal tissues in the
neighbourhood. Some of these uncontrollable cells break
off and carry their characteristics to other parts of the
body as metastasis that spread destruction and death. This
process can be halted by providing the tissues with the
required nutrients to repair the cellular damage in DNA
and mitochondria. These nutrients must also strengthen
the immune cells to be capable of destroying the cancer
cells. This is possible through the use of herbal nutrients
which contain the necessary ingredients to do the job.
This has been achieved in cases of breast cancer, cancer
of uterus, melanoma and other cancers.
Hormone dependent disorders like diabetes, thyroid gland
dysfunction, menopause, libido and many others can be
eliminated by providing these necessary nutrients by
using diet and where required, food supplements.
Menopause and loss of virility comes because of the
progressive reduction in our food intake as we grow
older. As a result of eating processed foods like white
sugar, white flour and processed grain where the nutrients
are removed and fed to lower animals, we develop
deficiency diseases like diabetes, scurvy, eczema, lupus
and asthma. These come about because our body’s
immune systems have been programmed wrongly
because of introducing adverse antigens into the body
through vaccinations and inoculations. All these
immunity or autoimmune disorders could be corrected by
providing the body with the nutrients the body needs to
reprogramme the immunity. By providing these
supplements we have been successful in eliminating all
symptoms and signs of lupus, asthma, eczema, thyroid
gland problems and so on.
Stroke which is a result of the blocking of blood clotting
could be eliminated. The underlying disorder is in the
metabolism of cholesterol leading to partial or complete
blockage of a blood vessel. Where there is a blood clot or
a ruptured blood vessel and bleeding, you find an
accumulation of free radicals, white blood cells in the
clot. This pathology needs nutrients to put it right. The
cholesterol needs nutrients to facilitate its breakdown into
energy. The blood clot and the repair of the damaged
blood vessel will be completed by the white blood cells.
We have seen this happen in many cases of stroke where
paralysis disappeared within weeks or months when the
necessary nutrients were provided to the patient. Brain
and nerve disorders may develop because of using too
much alcohol or a diet deficient in vitamins and minerals.
Even psychiatric disorders are a result of the body’s
failure to make the right nerve transmitters for lack of the
proper nutrients. Where these mental problems existed,
we provided the patients with nutritional supplements and
an improved diet. The result was an improvement or
recovery from the dementia of a psychiatric problem.
As a result of the above observations as summarised, the
following conclusion was inevitable. The Unified Field
Theory of Disease and Nutrition (establishes) postulates
that all disease states have their origin in some form of
malnutrition at one stage or another. Even those arising
from genetic defects could be attributed to the influence
of a mutation that occurred because of a nutritional defect
in the diet of the individual or alternatively the mutation
Continued from page 35– Unified Theory of Disease…
persisted because of lack of proper nutrition. All disease
states whether they are congenital, infective, and
degenerative have a nutritional factor in their causation,
promotion or elimination.
http://www.blackherbals.com/mariandian_nutritional_health_pr
oducts.htm
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Continued from page 24– To All African People
Living in New Zealand
6 months, how can it be that clean-living, monogamous
Africans in New Zealand are more likely to have HIV
disease? There is something very wrong with this picture.
Black Africans are much more likely to have a false
positive test result due to exposure to TB, malaria,
leprosy, and inherited blood disorders like sickle cell
anaemia, malnutrition and many other factors. MOH
statistics also demonstrate that over 300 Black Africans
in New Zealand at this time have HIV disease. Many if
not most of these likely represent false positives, but
people are instructed to take anti-HIV medicines that are
extremely harmful (and more so to Black people). In the
case of Black African children, the parents are being
ordered by the courts to give their children the anti-HIV
medicine.
Almost every person taking these drugs experiences
severe and life-threatening side effects. Most adults
decide the treatment is worse than the disease and stop
taking the drugs. Black African children do not have this
right according to the doctors. Doctors are lying to the
courts by stating that HIV-infected Africans pose a risk to
the wider community if they refuse anti-HIV drugs; even
the manufacturers drug prescribing sheets state that
taking the drugs does not prevent transmission to others.
In any event, HIV appears to have extremely low transmissibility; a study in the US followed hundreds of
couples where one partner was positive and the other
negative for 10 years. Twenty five percent of the couples
did not use condoms regularly, and 47 couples reported
having unsafe sex, but not one single negative person
became positive. It is certain that many Africans have
died from taking the anti-HIV drugs. More than 20% of
Black Americans have a genetic difference in the way
their body processes the drugs, which can result in blood
drug levels three times higher than they should be – a
potentially lethal dose. In Black Africans this genetic
difference is likely to be higher than 20%. When the
African person dies from these drugs, the doctors write
“AIDS” on the death certificate.
We feel these issues need to be raised publicly; Black
Africans have a right to know these facts. An article high-
lighting these concerns is in the process of being written
and will be published on the scoop.co.nz website, but it
isn’t enough. I am hoping that as a prominent African in
NZ you can help bring to light these terrible injustices.
We have been working with 2 excellent human rights
lawyers on one individual case, and the lawyers would be
happy to instigate a class-action lawsuit on behalf of all
Black Africans who may have been harmed, or whose
rights have been infringed by the racist medical system in
New Zealand.
Yours sincerely
Felix Mwashomah & Cathy van Miert
Tel: 09-5277257, or 09-5261954.
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Africa: Researchers Record
'Major Breakthrough' Against
Malaria
Abimbola Akosile With Agency Report
Lagos
This Day (Lagos)
15 July 2008
Australian scientists yesterday identified a potential
treatment to combat malaria, a global scourge, which kills
about 300,000 Nigerians, mostly children below five
years, annually.
According to a report on the British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC) website, researchers in Melbourne
believe their discovery could be a major breakthrough in
the fight against the disease; where the malaria parasite
produces a glue-like substance which makes the cells it
infects sticky, so they cannot be flushed through the
body.
The researchers, according to the report, have shown how
removing a protein responsible for the glue can destroy
its stickiness, and undermine the parasite's defence.
The malaria parasite, named Plasmodium falciparum,
effectively hijacks the red blood cells it invades,
changing their shape and physical properties
dramatically.
Among the changes it triggers is the production of the
glue-like substance, which enables the infected cells to
stick to the walls of the blood vessels. This stops them
being passed through the spleen, where the parasites
would usually be destroyed by the immune system.
stimulate new ties with business and avoid damage
to the environment
Continued from page 27 – The Afrikan Traditional Herbal
Research Centre
Food Science
The food production and delivery chain is a complex
intersection of several sectors of the economy. The
farmer produces raw agricultural commodities. The
commodities are purchased by food processors that in
turn sell or distribute the product to wholesalers. The
wholesalers market the products to retailers who sell
the raw or modified agricultural products to consumers.
Throughout this chain there are opportunities for
product loss through spoilage and spillage.
Obviously post-harvest losses can be reduced if there is
a value-added post-harvest system in the country that
properly stabilizes food for the food delivery system.
Such a value-added sector is dependent on several
factors including a dependable supply of indigenous
raw agricultural commodities, an economy that
supports investment in hardware and industry, a
regulatory system that fosters a fair and competitive
market structure, and a well-trained, educated work
force. It is this last item, a well-trained and educated
work force that is addressed in this proposal.
Uganda represents a large area, capable of producing a
wide variety of agricultural commodities. The majority
of the current food needs are produced locally, with the
remainder being imported. Much of the imported foods
are fully processed and packaged when they arrive and
inserted immediately into the distribution and
marketing systems. One obvious mechanism to enhance
the local economy is to convert raw commodities into
consumer ready products locally. The transfer of
knowledge and technology enhances opportunities to
process indigenous products to local tastes and
customs, providing jobs, leading to economic stability.
Exporting these products also generates much-needed
foreign exchange and brings real development to the
country and the region. In this way, developing
countries are able to claim a share in global markets,
thereby bringing prosperity to their people.
Moreover, the benefits of knowledge and technology
transfer with respect to traditional agriculture and food
science can help to:
•
Develop programs and policies that strengthen
farmers, businesses, and markets
•
Increase rural education and training and build
public institutions
•
Expand traditional agricultural research and
outreach to exploit existing and new technologies,
such as food science (processing, preservation and
packaging), and information technologies, to
•
Coordinate food and agricultural programs with
actions to combat poverty, and;
•
Increase food production for intra and intercontinental trade with other Afrikans/Blacks
throughout the Continent and the Diaspora.
In Uganda, for example, the use of natural spices and
preservatives such as bird peppers, pimento, cloves,
and cinnamon was discouraged by colonial powers and
the medical community. African bird pepper is one
such spice that grows wild all over Uganda and is
extremely beneficial to health. For 10,000 years, the
chili pepper has been used as a natural preservative and
for such physical ailments as poor circulation,
regulating blood pressure, digestion, and respiratory
problems. In Jamaica, bird pepper was used by the
Maroons (Africans), to naturally preserve meat and
food. Obtaining informational access to Western
research libraries and computer databases could go far
in providing much needed information on such topics
not readily available on the Afrikan continent.
Afrikan Traditional Medicine (ATM)
In all countries of the world, there exists traditional
knowledge related to the health of humans and animals.
Presently, eighty percent of the world’s populations
still depend upon traditional and indigenous knowledge
in medicine and herbal practices. In Afrika, traditional
healers and the herbal remedies made from plants play
an important role in the health of millions of people.
Afrika has a long and impressive list of medicinal
plants based on local knowledge. Based upon holistic
principles, this science pre-dates Egyptian medical
science and is between 20,000 and 100,000 years old.
In fact, it is the oldest medical science on the planet.
Afrikan health practitioners are devoted to teaching
individuals how to improve their physical, mental, and
spiritual health through preventative lifestyles. Doctors
and health personnel have continued to shun traditional
medical practitioners despite their contribution to
meeting the basic health needs of the population,
especially the rural people in developing countries.
Developing countries have begun to realise that their
current health systems are dependent upon western
technologies and upon western medicines that are
expensive and whose medicinal supply is toxic, erratic
at best or non-existent.
The ancient Afrikans believed that a healthy immune
system is responsible for the health and healing of the
human body. From this premise, health problems occur
as the result of “something lacking” in our nutrition,
Continued from page 37 - The Afrikan Traditional Herbal
Research Centre
leaving the human body vulnerable to disease. Afrikan
medicine is a nutrient based system. A diet and lifestyle
deficient in vital nutrients makes us susceptible to
opportunistic infections, and cellular disorganisation
(cancer). Western doctors believe that the body destroys
itself with disease and that harmful bacteria and viruses
are trying to kill good bacteria and viruses. Therefore,
they must give toxic, poisonous drugs and vaccines to
stop the body from killing itself.
The Afrikan system of health disagrees with the idea of
germs being the sole source of disease. Their philosophy
is consistent with the laws of nature, based upon an
ancient belief in the body’s natural ability to heal itself
when given the appropriate herbs, seeds, and foods.
Moreover, our African biochemistry requires a type of
nutritional support (African Dietetics) that is not readily
available in western cultures or through western
medicine. The science of African biochemistry is based
on the biochemical molecule, melanin. The lack of
melanin-sustaining foods (which can be found in plant
phyto-nutrients) is one of the major causes of our
nutritional deficiencies leading to disease.
Currently, we are witnessing a breakdown of western
European systems to cure diseases, derived from both
natural and unnatural causes. Most pharmaceutical drugs,
developed primarily to relieve symptoms, do not cure
diseases. Vaccines were developed to immunize against
disease, but can also be use to spread disease. For
example, immunization by vaccination has been the
means of spreading some of the most fatal and infectious
diseases, such as leprosy, syphilis, tetanus, tuberculosis,
smallpox and presently AIDS, polio and meningitis.
Economic interest is the main reason why no medical
breakthroughs exist for the control or elimination of the
most common diseases and why these diseases continue
like epidemics on a worldwide scale. The pharmaceutical
industry withholds public information about the effects
and risks of their prescription drugs and vaccines and
life-threatening side-effects are omitted or openly denied.
Many Blacks in the U.S., like their counterparts
throughout Africa and the Diaspora, cannot even afford
pharmaceutical drugs to alleviate the symptoms of
disease.
In healthcare, intellectual property rights have increased
the price of pharmaceutical drugs. Generally, the chronic
ailments and diseases that affect Afrikans in the
Diaspora, i.e. cancer, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, etc.
are based on improper diet and lifestyles. By design,
Afrika is plagued with natural and unnatural occurrences
of communicable, parasitic and infectious diseases, such
as AIDS, malaria, polio, etc. With their corresponding
vaccinations and pharmaceutical drugs, these diseases are
devastating the continent's Black population. The
AIDS/Malaria genocide, taking place in Afrika, is
painting a clear pattern of death, of cultural, economic
and agricultural destruction which will be followed by
encroaching Western political, economic and military
control.
Control over the world’s natural plant resources are also
at risk. For the very same economic reasons mentioned
above, the pharmaceutical industry has formed an
international cartel by the code name "Codex
Alimentarius" with the aim to outlaw any health
information in connection with vitamins and to limit free
access to natural therapies on a worldwide scale. The
multinational drug companies are helping to place a ban
on natural herbal products as well to monopolize the
vitamin and herbal remedies as their limitless source of
revenue. In fact, what is already occurring in many
developing countries is "biopiracy", where corporations
use the folk wisdom of indigenous peoples to locate and
understand the use of medicinal plants and then exploit
them commercially through patents. From such an act of
biopiracy, two drugs derived from the rosy periwinkle
(vincristine and vinblastine), earn $100 million annually
for Eli Lilly. The plant is indigenous to the rainforest of
Madagascar and Madagascar has received nothing in
return.
These same multinational companies have introduced
diseases that can destroy the plants and herbs we use as
natural sources of nutrients, so that we can become more
dependent on their products. These are the same
multinational corporations that have a monopoly on the
development and production of genetically modified
organisms, pesticides and herbicides, which poison the
environment and produce metabolic changes in our foods
and in our bodies.
Biodiversity is Afrika's richest asset. Traditional knowledge on the properties of plants, seeds, algae and other
biological resources is being sought by western scientists
for medicinal, agricultural and other purposes. Trade in
biological resources is big business today, but the terms
are tipped in favour of the multinational corporations and
are not in Afrika’s benefit, undermining the collective
rights of communities to biodiversity. Since time
immemorial, Afrikan people have depended upon free
and open access to a rich diversity of biological resources
for food, fuel, medicine, shelter, economic security, and
the exchange and trade of such resources among
themselves. In agriculture, the commercialisation of the
seed market, patents on seed, and the introduction of
genetic engineering have serious implications for
Afrika’s farmers and food security.
Research Centre
Much of the knowledge on Afrika’s indigenous plant
population and their curative powers are from studies
mapped and funded by western countries and stored in
western information depositories such as PROTA in the
Netherlands or from the Medical Research Council in
South Africa. There exist over 7000 medicinal plants in
Tropical Africa. Although these studies are far from
complete, 76 plants indigenous to Uganda and 208
indigenous to East Afrika are listed. Information on
indigenous medicinal plants in Uganda needs to be
gathered and assembled in a centralised location for use
by herbalists and other medical professionals. This will
allow local indigenous knowledge to be published and
protected and its plant uses, standardised.
This rather long introduction, written in 2005 is the
introduction text of a proposal Blackherbals presented
to several Ugandan government agencies and NGOs
such
as
MPAMBO
Multiversity,
National
Chemotherapeutics Laboratory (NCRL), National
Council of Traditional Herbalists Associations
(NACOTHA), etc. to establish a school of African
Traditional Herbal Medicine. The aim and objectives of
our proposal are:
•
To recapture indigenous Afrikan thought, history,
herbal, medicinal and agricultural traditions and all
other indigenous knowledge to reeducate our
people to Afrikan culture.
•
To use and integrate this knowledge with
technology to develop our nation of people,
alleviate poverty and achieve higher levels of selfsufficiency, dignity and self-determination.
•
To take responsibility for Afrika’s health, wealth
and education using Afrikan indigenous knowledge
as the foundation for understanding the complex
world we live in today.
Who we are
We are Kiwanuka and Nakato Lewis, husband (retired
engineer) and wife (retired research chemist), partners,
born in Jamaica and the United States, respectively,
descendants of enslaved Afrikans from the Diaspora,
standing on the shoulders of our Ancestors.
Initially, as RGL Enterprises International Inc.,
(registered in New York and Toronto, Canada), we
created www.Blackherbals.com to address the lack of
herbal/nutritional knowledge among Afrikans/Blacks in
the Diaspora.
With the growth of Western medicine, we discovered
that the use of Afrikan herbal medicine and traditional
foods known by the enslaved Africans in the Diaspora,
such as in the United States, was discouraged and hence,
most of that knowledge was lost. Many Afrikan societies
throughout the Diaspora however, retained some of their
Afrikan traditions, such as the Jamaican Maroons.
What we had learned from a previous trip to Uganda in
2004 was that many Ugandans were also in danger of
losing their indigenous knowledge and the ability to heal
themselves using traditional Afrikan healing methods.
Ugandans were told by practitioners of Western medicine
that traditional herbal solutions do not work and is
considered witchcraft. As a result, there is ample
evidence that Ugandans are beginning to suffer the same
fate as their brothers and sisters in the Diaspora. What is
even more surprising was that many of the herbs which
could be used to correct some of the most common
ailments of many Ugandans could be found in their own
compounds! Meanwhile, multinational pharmaceutical
companies were and are documenting Afrikan herbs and
plants with the intent of commercially developing and
patenting expensive new drugs.
As Afrikans, we should take ownership of our ancient
knowledge and resources and exercise our intellectual
property rights to pass our indigenous knowledge to our
descendents for their descendents. The Afrikan’s
knowledge of herbal medicine, both on the continent and
in the Diaspora, is far older, than any indigenous group
on the planet. But, there are not many books for the world
to see on Afrikan Traditional Medicine (ATM). We
suggested that Uganda can become a world model by
taking the initiative and developing an independent and
alternative health care system based primarily but not
solely upon their indigenous knowledge of herbs, food
and plants.
At that time, however, we were told by everyone that
Uganda lacked the capacity, the infrastructure and the
resources for these types of endeavors. So we elected to
start our own clinic - The African Traditional Herbal
Research Clinic/Centre - to learn first-hand about African
herbal-based medicine, traditional herbs and their uses, to
conduct clinical research on herbal plants for use in our
herbal formulations that could positively impact the
health of Afrikan people everywhere and finally to learn
about African Spirituality and its integration in holistic
healing.
RGL Enterprises Intl/Blackherbals at the Source of the
Nile UG Ltd. is registered in Uganda since November
2005. In February 2006, The African Traditional Herbal
Research Clinic/Centre was established with the initial
help of NACOTHA, of which Kiwanuka Lewis is a
member and the clinic is registered as a traditional herbal
association. Both Kiwanuka and Nakato are registered
Research Centre
with the Ugandan Government as traditional herbalists.
Our first two years was devoted to the research and
development of herbal formulas, in a clinical setting, to
address the health problems of continental Afrikans
suffering from traditional African diseases and chronic
diseases acquired from the adoption of Western culture.
Many of the local herbs have been tested in the treatment
of various symptoms at our research centre. The results
are very, very encouraging. Our BHSN formulas contain
selected wild-crafted herbs gathered and collected from
historically traditional sites throughout Uganda. The
herbs we collect and use are traditional organic, free of
all pesticides, herbicides, chemical inputs and when
necessary produced using traditional agricultural
methods.
We have established good working contacts with other
traditional herbal groups in Central Uganda (Walussi
Mountain, PROMETRA) and with Kasese/Rwenzori area
in western Uganda, (KADDENTHCA), enabling us to
learn from them as they are learning from us. Recently,
our contacts have extended to groups in eastern Uganda
as well as to groups in the war-torn north.
We have attended various workshops and symposia, such
as NCRL, Malaria Consortium, NAPRECA, Uganda
Industrial Research Institute, Uganda Historical Memory
and Reconciliation Council, Inter Cultural Union of
Uganda, Makerere University and Marcus Garvey Pan
Afrikan Institute in Mbale. At MPAI, Kiwanuka is a
research fellow and Nakato is on the Board of Directors.
Kiwanuka is also an executive Board Member of the
Walussi Spiritualists Committee. Walussi Mountain in
central Uganda is our village.
ATHR Clinic
With information gathered from a community needs
survey conducted by BHSN in Bukoto Parish, Kampala
in October 2005, we identified 12 immediate diseases
affecting area residents. Therefore, our efforts were
concentrated on herbal medicines for these disorders. Our
research uncovered many existing traditional African
herbal formulas. With respect to usage, standardization,
quality control and dosage, we have sought to refined
them and to created and develop new ones as well. Our
aim is to use this concept throughout various
communities in Uganda to effectively fight diseases at
home, the natural way. We have been asked to take our
concept abroad to other parts of the African continent and
to the Diaspora where our people are suffering from the
same diseases, only in larger numbers.
Since then, we have provided treatment for over 60
diseases, symptoms and conditions with varying degrees
of success. Our present patient load is over 300 people
and new patients are arriving everyday. Most of our
patients have multiple health problems. As required by
our protocol, none of our patients take western
pharmaceuticals. Some of the services we offer are noninvasive treatments for:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
AIDS (Herbal Antiviral)
Malaria
Diarrhea/Constipation
Heart problems (pressure, circulation, strokes)
Diabetes
Sexual Transmitted diseases
Respiratory ailments (asthma, colds and TB)
Ulcers and other Digestive disorders
Skin diseases and rashes
Arthritis and Rheumatism
Reproductive problems -Fertility (Men and
Women)
Tumours and Growths
Sickle Cell Anemia
Central Nervous System (Epilepsy)
Cancer
Paralysis
Gout
Weight Loss
Urinary Tract Infections
Hepatitis
Detoxification
Energy Tonics
Muscle Pain
Feminine Problems
Addictions
Over 35% of our patients were presented to us with
malaria symptoms. Many were previously diagnosed with
recurring malaria and laboratory tests continue to show
parasites in their blood even after taking western
prescription medicines. Our treatment consists of only
three bottles of Blackherbals’ Malaria Mix (without
artemesia) taken over a period of 4-6 weeks. Laboratory
testing of our patients have confirmed the absence of
these parasites after treatment and many of our patients
have remained parasite-free for nearly two years and still
counting. Our formula has been effective in the treatment
of malaria even during the onset of symptoms as well as
in the prevention of disease. Therefore, it is very puzzling
for us and difficult to accept that there can be a malaria
epidemic in Uganda when herbal medicine is equally if
not more effective than western pharmaceuticals.
Moreover, we have able to increase the CD-4 count of
HIV/Aids patients using herbal detoxification and herbal
antiviral formulas. Thus we have been able to effectively
Continued from page 38 – The Afrikan Traditional
Herbal Research Centre
treat both malaria and HIV patients while reducing the
side effects associated with taking western
pharmaceuticals for HIV/Aids and malaria. In addition,
there is no shortage of the herbal medicine since we
only use local herbs.
Fifty-four percent of our patients present themselves
with digestive problems, namely ulcers, gastritis and
gout. These disorders are generally associated with
Ugandan diet, the love for milk, meat and alcohol. We
have been able to completely eliminate gout, heal
ulcers and gastrointestinal problems even in patients
with advanced symptoms.
Our herbal formula for diabetes, ‘DIA-B’ has been
effective in controlling blood sugar levels to the point
that one only has to monitor oneself and make the
necessary corrections through diet and exercise to
maintain control, thus eliminating the need for constant
medication.
Thirty-one per cent of our patients suffer from high
blood pressure and other pressure-related problems.
One of the major causes is the Ugandan love for salt
and salty food. This is a common problem not just for
Ugandans but Black people worldwide. Along with
dietary changes, Blackherbals ‘BP’ has been very
successful in maintaining normal blood pressure levels
without the side effects usually experience with
pharmaceuticals. Incorporating the use of spices in
one’s food has gone far to help our patients alleviate
the salt from their diet. Some of our patients, who have
been on blood pressure medication for years, use only
herbal medicine to control their blood pressure.
Forty percent of our clients have some type of
respiratory disorders. In the dry season, Uganda can be
very dusty and many people are affected, developing
flu-like symptoms and cough. Patients suffering from
asthma, bronchitis and pneumonia have found
substantial relief taking our respiratory mixes.
Thirty-five per cent of patients are women complaining
of female problems to include painful menstruation
fibroid tumours and blocked tubes, some requiring
surgery. We have been successful in reducing the size
of the tumours, saving many from surgery. We have
had 100% success rate with goiters and some hernias.
All of our patients are detoxified prior to or during
treatment. For some, detoxification is all that is
required for the symptoms to disappear. We also
provide patient counseling on their dietary habits and
what they can do to improve their health naturally. We
provide information in the form of newsletters and
articles to educate and enlighten our patients on their
conditions. We believe that an informed patient is one who
will begin to take responsibility for his or her health,
because ultimately that is where it belongs.
We train our employees to develop proper work ethics, to
display honesty, integrity and accountability and
transparency in all endeavors as well as pride in themselves
and the work they do. This is our biggest challenge.
The Way Forward
For the past six months we have been standardizing our
formulations to determine dosage, shelf life and efficacy in
concordance with the standards set forth by the National
Chemotherapeutics Research Laboratory, the National Drug
Authority and the Uganda National Bureau of Standards. In
the coming months, our formulas will be presented to these
government agencies for formal registration and approval.
We are proud and happy to say we have made some
significant achievements and contributions. Our new
product line at BHSN reflect many Afrikan traditional plant
materials whose uses are documented throughout the
Afrikan continent, but have never been actively promoted.
In conjunction with MPAI, we are helping to establish a
School of African Traditional Medicine over the next
several years.
Blackherbals has introduced a new service to link our clinic
operations with our internet storefront. We do custom made
formulations for off-site patients in health crisis who do not
have access to herbal practitioners. What we require is a
letter or email stating the problem, your symptoms, your
diet, current prescriptions and any diagnostic data provided
by doctors, hospitals, etc. This information is used to set up
your patient chart and to determine the individual efficacy
and effectiveness of our formulas. We formulate herbal
solutions for various health problems and symptoms, that in
many cases can be just as effective in treating the illness as
prescription medicines, which in many cases can become
resistant to the disease, will only address one issue of the
problem, or may be too toxic. A custom-made diet is
detailed for the patient because the Afrikan diet is essential
to our good health and recuperation. The cost of our
formulations is dependent upon the type of medical
problems, quantity and availability of required herbs,
number of formulations needed and duration of treatment.
Our prices are very affordable. Please email us
[email protected] for more details. We look
forward to hearing from you soon. We invite you also to
visit us online at www.blackherbals.com to learn more
about us and our concerns on the survival of Black people.
In our own small way, we are helping to bring about a
“Black Awakening” not just with words but through active
participation in this historical process.
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Continued from page 36 - Africa: Researchers Record
Major Breakthrough
The Australian team developed mutant strains of P.
falciparum, each lacking one of 83 genes known or
predicted to play a role in the red cell remodeling
process. Systematically testing each one, they were able
to show that eight proteins were involved in the
production of the key glue-like substance.
Removing just one of these proteins stopped the
infected cells from attaching themselves to the walls of
blood vessels, the report revealed.
Professor Alan Cowman, a member of the research
team at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical
Research, said targeting the protein with drugs, or
possibly a vaccine, could be key to fighting malaria.
"If we block the stickiness, we essentially block the
virulence or the capacity of the parasite to cause
disease," he said.
Malaria is preventable and curable, but can be fatal if
not treated promptly. The disease kills more than a
million people each year. Many of the victims are
young children in sub-Saharan Africa.
Available statistics indicate that one out of every five
Nigerian children will die before their fifth birthday,
with malaria alone being responsible for one quarter of
these deaths.
Malaria is said to be responsible for an estimated 30 per
cent of deaths among children, 11 per cent among
pregnant women and 80 per cent of diseases in reported
cases in health facilities. It is certainly the leading
cause of morbidity and mortality in the country.
Records also show that 50 per cent of Nigeria's
population suffers from, at least, one episode of malaria
attack each year. The disease accounts for over 45 per
cent of all outpatient visits.
The Federal Government spends millions annually on
awareness campaigns and provides malaria control
measures, which involves programmes such as the Roll
Back Malaria Initiative, where special insecticidetreated bed-nets are produced and distributed to the
people, especially nursing mothers.
Various countries and international organisations such
as Japan and the World Health Organisation (WHO)
are also collaborating with the country in the fight
against her 'biggest' killer.
In the country, malaria is directly or remotely
responsible for the loss of millions of productive hours,
resulting in colossal reduction in individual and
collective productivity.
The Kano State Commissioner for Health, Malama Aisha
Ishiaku, recently stated that the malaria scourge accounts
for an annual economic burden of about N132 billion in
Nigeria.
Reports also revealed that in Africa, malaria accounts for
10 per cent of the continent's disease burden as well as the
$12 billion yearly lost in productivity.
Globally, about 40 per cent of world population (2.4
billion) is known to be at risk. An estimated 300-500
million cases of malaria occur globally every year.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200807150155.html
☻☻☻☻☻☻
HIV ‘Hides from Drugs for
Years’
BBC
March 16, 2008
HIV can survive the apparently effective onslaught of
antiretroviral drugs for years by hiding away in the body’s
cells, research shows.
The US National Cancer Institute found low levels of
dormant HIV in patients seven years after they started – and
responded well to - standard therapy.
The finding confirms patients must take drugs indefinitely,
and that any break runs the risk of rekindling infection.
The study features in Proceedings of the National Academy
of sciences.
People with HIV need to take treatment indefinitely
because current drugs cannot reach this pool of dormant
virus. The researchers followed 40 patients infected with
HIV for seven years.
Doctors do not usually record infection levels once the
number of HIV particles falls below 50 per milliliters of
blood.
However, the NCI team used highly sensitive equipment to
measure infection levels below this threshold. They found
that the virus was still present at low levels in 77% of the
patients.
The research suggests that although potent antiretroviral
therapy can suppress HIV infection to almost undetectable
levels, it cannot eradicate the virus.
The researchers said that even though levels of the virus
that remain are low, they are high enough to rekindle
infection if treatment is interrupted.
The risk of infecting others is low, but cannot be ruled out.
They believe HIV may be harboured by CD-4+ cells, which
parlay a role in the immune system. Continued on page 43
Continued from page 44- HIV hides from Drugs for Years
These cells are most likely infected before therapy was
initiated and the amount of virus they produce is small.
Researcher Dr Sarah Palmer said: “It is extremely
important that new drugs are developed to eradicate
HIV infection as the side effects associated with long
term HIV treatment can be severe.
She also warned that failing to take prescribed
medication raised the risk that HIV could begin to
develop resistance, rendering future treatment less
effective.
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Only 5% Rural Children
Access ARVs – Study
David Mafabi
provide services for the children visited in eastern Uganda,
less than one per cent of the children access ARVs.
Dr Elyanu said in Budadiri health centre IV in Sironko
District and Amuria health centre IV in Amuria District,
although 85 and 94 children infected with HIV/Aids
respectively have been registered to get ARVs, only one is
accessing it at each of the centres.
Dr Elyanu said at Budaka health centre IV and Pallisa
Hospital, only four children are accessing ARVs.
He said les than three children are accessing ARVs in
Kumi, Bukedea, Bukwo, Kapchorwa, Kaberamaido,
Katakwi, Butaleja, Bududa and Manafwa.
☻☻☻☻☻☻
ARVs can double Patients’
Lives - Study
Kakaire Kirunda
Daily Monitor
March 26, 2008
Only 17 per cent of the children infected with
HIV/Aids in Uganda access anti-retroviral drugs.
Of these, less than five per cent are from rural areas,
according to research done by Baylor College of
Medicine Children’s Foundation-Uganda
Most of the 83 per cent infected children in rural areas
do not access treatment and usually die, Baylor College
of Medicine Children’s Foundation Uganda [BCMCFU] regional coordinator Dr Peter Elyanu says.
BCMCF-U is an indigenous, child focused NGO
specialized in child HIV/Aids and affiliated to the
Baylor International Paediatric Aids Initiative (Bipai).
Dr Elyanu, a paediatrician, was last Wednesday
addressing medical staff, district leaders, and
representatives of NGOs involved in the fight against
HIV/Aids in Pallisa town during a conference to seek
ways of increasing child HIV/aids services in the
region.
He said due to lack of access to ARVs, about 75 per
cent of children infected with HIV/Aids die before the
age of five.
Dr Elyanu said whereas currently Uganda has close to
140,000 children living with HIV/Aids and another
25,000 continue to be infected annually, access to
paediatric HIV/Aids services and ARTs have remained
limited to the central region thereby leaving many of
the infected children in rural areas dying within the
fifth year.
He said, in most government health centres meant to
Daily Monitor
July 31, 2008
People using antiretroviral (ARV) drugs can now expect to
live into their 60s and beyond, if finds from an international
study are anything to go by.
A report published in the Lancet medical journal indicates
people living with HIV/Aids could have ARVs prolong
their lives by anywhere between 30 and 50 years, meaning
a person that embarks on ARV therapy at 20 could live up
to 70 years.
Analysing 18,587 (1996-99), 13,914 (2000-02) and 10,584
(2003-05) patients on combination antiretroviral therapy
(ART), researchers from Canada and the United Kingdom
sought to compare changes in mortality and life expectancy
among HIV-positive individuals.
Results from 14 studies in that period show that Aidsrelated deaths decreased progressively through the years,
accounting for a 40 percent reduction by 2005.
Published in the July 26 edition of the Lancet medical
journal, the study showed that an individual starting
successful HIV treatment aged 20 would be expected to
live to be 63, and that a patient initiating an anti-HIV drugs
regimen aged 35 could live to the age of 67.
Since the 1966 introduction of antiretroviral therapy,
combination therapy regimen have become more effective,
better tolerated and have been simplified in terms of dosing.
The researchers also found that starting treatment with a
CD4 cell count above 200 would mean that a person aged
20 could expect to live to be 70, and that a 35-year-old
could survive into their 72nd year.
Continued from page 45 – ARVs Can Double Patient Lives
A CD4 count is used to assess the immune status of
HIV infected persons.
In Uganda, there are currently about 132,000 people on
antiretroviral therapy, yet nearly 300,000 require the
drugs.
However, the government recently allocated Shs60
billion to the health sector for the procurement of
ARVs, a move likely to bring another 150,000 persons
living with HIV on treatment.
Uganda has set a target of putting 263,000 people on
treatment by 2012, and 342,000 by 2020.
But this raises questions on sustainability, as 95 per
cent of the ARV programme is currently donor
supported, mainly by the American-funded President’s
Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) initiative.
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Drug Factories SubStandard
By Conan Businge
New Vision (Kampala)
18 July 2008
THE majority of drug manufacturing companies in
Uganda do not meet operational standards, according to
a new survey. A survey by the National Drug Authority
revealed that several companies will be closed soon,
after their grading is completed. The companies were
not named.
The report was presented at the authority's annual
general meeting at Protea Hotel in Kampala on
Thursday. It noted that most companies do not meet
required minimum production standards. It also found
unsanitary protective uniforms, change rooms,
production rooms, stores, corridors and wash areas for
manufacturing vessels."
"Half of the manufacturing companies had problems
with cleaning sanitary premises," said Nasser Mbaziira,
the eastern regional drug inspector, "A number of them
have procedure guidelines, but no records; and the
reverse was true for others." He added that there were
also anomalies in the flow of the production process.
The inspectors explained that there should be a specific
flow of the production process to avoid contamination
and back flows.
"Much as there is improvement in documentation of
manufacturers' activities, the majority of them do not
record the production process," said the report. It also noted
that half the companies did not have internal audit systems
and there was little input from the managers in the
production process.
Despite the shortcomings, the companies had hand washing
facilities, ongoing installations of air-conditioning systems
and quality control labs.
Mbaziira said the firms would be graded in five categories
depending on their performance. "The worst ones with
critical working conditions will have their certificates and
licenses withdrawn. They will also be instantly closed."
Copies of the survey's highlights, which were given to the
participants, were later withdrawn after complaints from
some manufacturers who wanted the results to remain
confidential.
"This is unfair to us. How are we going to convince
exporters that our products are of good quality? You should
have addressed the press, exporters and manufacturers
differently," retorted one as several participants nodded in
approval.
However, the authority's chief inspector, Kate Kikule, said:
"There is nothing to hide. In this way we can build our local
producers by improving their products' quality. All drugs
are inspected before getting to the market.
"Only those that meet the standard are distributed to the
public."
NDA chief Apollo Muhairwe stressed that the "inspections
were done to develop the local drug manufacturing
industry."
http://allafrica.com/stories/200807210123.html
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CDC: 1.1 million Americans
have AIDS Virus
Population living with HIV grows as more become infected,
survive longer
October 2, 2008
WASHINGTON - A new estimate of how many Americans
have the AIDS virus puts the number at about 1.1 million,
the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on
Thursday.
The CDC numbers, based on 2006 data, show the
population living with HIV is growing as people become
newly infected and as more patients survive thanks to HIV
drugs.
The report also suggests that past estimates that more than 1
million Americans were living with HIV overstated the
Continued from page 44 – CC: 1.1 M Americans have
AIDS Virus
actual total number of people with HIV infections at the
time.
The agency used different methods than it has in the
past to calculate the number. Its most recent nationwide
estimate of 1 million had been given for 2003, and
using the new methods the CDC figured that 994,000
were living with HIV that year.
"These data really show the continued impact that the
epidemic is having on Americans, and they really
reinforce the severe toll that is experienced in multiple
communities," the CDC's Richard Wolitski said in a
telephone interview.
The CDC report reinforced previous findings that the
epidemic disproportionately affects blacks of both
sexes as well as gay and bisexual men.
As the number of people living with HIV grows, so
does the cost of providing medical services to this
population and the burden on the U.S. health care
system, Wolitski said.
The CDC estimated that about one in five — 232,700
of the 1.1 million people infected with the human
immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS — did not
know they were infected. The total U.S. population is
300 million.
"We're not going to be able to treat our way out of this
epidemic. We need to have strong prevention programs
so we can prevent these infections from occurring in
the first place," said Wolitski, acting chief of the CDC's
HIV/AIDS prevention division.
Men made up three quarters of people with HIV
infections.
The CDC previously reported that more people are
becoming infected each year than previously estimated,
with 56,300 new HIV infections in the United States in
2006. Previous estimates put the number of new
infections at about 40,000 a year.
Of all the people infected with HIV, 48 percent were
men who have sex with men, the CDC said. While
male-to-male sexual contact was the leading cause of
HIV infections, heterosexual sex — mostly women
having sex with men who are injection drug users —
accounted for 28 percent of HIV-infected people.
Injection drug use, which spreads the blood-borne virus
via contaminated needles, contributed 19 percent of the
HIV cases.
Blacks make up 12 percent of the overall population
but accounted for 46 percent of those infected with HIV
(510,100 people). About 35 percent of those with HIV
were white and 18 percent were Hispanic, according to the
CDC.
Black women were nearly 18 times more likely than white
women to be infected with HIV, while black men were six
times more likely than white men, the CDC said. Hispanics
were 2.6 times more likely than whites to be infected.
In 2006, about 14,000 Americans died of AIDS. At the end
of 2006, the disease had killed nearly 546,000 Americans
since being first recognized in the early 1980s.
To make the new estimates, the CDC used information on
new HIV diagnoses taken from 40 states with the best data
and AIDS diagnoses and deaths taken from all 50 states, as
well as a statistical method called "back-calculation."
Globally, 33 million people have HIV and 25 million have
died of it.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26993069
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HIV Spread Still High Despite
Fall in Infection
Evelyn Lirriin
Saturday Monitor
August 2, 2008
Uganda is one of the countries where a significant
prevention of new infections of HIV has been registered,
the latest report by the Joint United Nations Programme on
HIV indicates.
The report released on July 29 says that much of the
dramatic declines have been as a result of change in sexual
behaviour.
“In a number of heavily affected countries such as Kenya,
Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe, dramatic changes in
sexual behaviour have been accompanied by declines in the
number of new infections,” the report says.
It says that a decline in new infections in these countries
has contributed to the global stabilization of people infected
by the virus since the late 1990s.
According to the report, some of the factors contributing to
the decline in sexual behaviour are the increased use of
condoms and abstinence from [sex] until later years.
The report warns that even with the registered prevention of
new infections, there is still a long way before the promise
of an Aids free generation is fulfilled. It says that progress
is still uneven across countries, and the epidemics future
still uncertain.
Continued from page 45 – HIV Spread Still High Despite
Fall in Infection
Uganda has been promoting the ABC – Abstinence, Be
Faithful and use a Condom approach for HIV
prevention. This enabled the country to reduce its
national HIV prevalence from about 30 per cent in the
early years of the epidemic to about 6.4 per cent to
date. However, recent trends indicate that since 2000,
the prevalence has stagnated.
This latest comprehensive report published by Unaids
is based on progress review reports from 147 countries
globally as part of efforts to implement the 2001
declaration of commitments on HIV.
HIV Infection Rate High
Among Forces
By Rehema Aanyu
17 July 2008
The rate of new HIV infection is high among the armed
forces compared to the civilian population, the director
general of the Uganda AIDS Commission has said.
Dr. Kihumuro Apuuli noted that the infection rates were
two to five times higher among the forces than in the
whole population.
The report also says that increased financing for HIV
programmes, especially in low income countries
including Uganda has contributed to lowering
prevalence and preventing new infections.
"For every two people put on anti-retroviral (ARV)
treatment, five more are infected. It is like chasing a
mirage."
The Director General of the Uganda Aids Commission,
Dr Kihumuro Apuuli, said in Uganda’s Progress
He observed that the armed forces were also at increased
risk of contracting and spreading HIV due to their
mobility.
Report that some of the factors driving the epidemic
include behavioural, social, cultural, economic and
geographic factors like poverty and early marriage.
Apuuli was on Tuesday addressing the army, the Police
and Prisons Service chiefs at the Kampala Protea Hotel.
Dr Apuuli said that new infections are found highest
among cohabiting married or widowed people. This
group category, he said contribute to 42 per cent of the
new infections, conventional sex contributes 22 per
cent, mother to child transmission 21 per cent, while
casual sex contribute to 14 per cent of new infections.
According to Dr Apuuli, currently the HIV prevalence
rate is 6.4 percent, with percentages higher in the urban
areas at 10.1 per cent while in the rural areas
prevalence stands at 5.7 per cent.
In a press statement, the executive Director of Unaids,
Dr Peter Piot said the positive progress should be
sustained. “Gains in saving lives by preventing new
infections and providing treatment to people living with
HIV must be sustained over the long term,” he said.
“Short term gains should serve as a platform for
reinvigorating combination HIV prevention and
treatment efforts and not spur complacency,” Dr Piot
added.
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Daily Monitor Brief - May 8, 2008
At least 27,000 babies in Uganda are born with
HIV/Aids every year, according to new statistics
released by the Parliamentary Committee on HIV/Aids.
Less than 20% of HIV positive pregnant women have
access interventions to prevent mother to child
infections.
He attributed the new infections to increased interaction
between combatants and civilians, and rise in commercial
sex.
Apuuli also cited decreased availability of health services
related to sexually transmitted infections and the lack of
adequate knowledge and means to prevent transmission.
The armed forces should incorporate HIV/AIDS
interventions in their programmes and counter
stigmatisation of victims, Apuuli suggested.
"The armed forces must help in building bridges between
communities and vulnerable groups to make their lives
easier."
He also called for more funding to expand access to antiretroviral therapy as well as medicines to treat
opportunistic infections and other sexually transmitted
diseases.
The director of HIV/AIDS interventions in the army, Lt.
Col. Stephen Kusasira, said the disease was the main
cause of death in the force.
He said they were incorporating sensitisation on the
pandemic in all command duties and training.
The meeting was organised by the Community Health
and Information Network.
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Circumcision may not
reduce gay male HIV risk
Study: No clear proof procedure protects men who
are intimate with guys
October 7, 2008
WASHINGTON - There is not enough evidence to say
circumcision protects men from getting the AIDS virus
during sex with other men even as studies show it
protects them when having sex with women, U.S.
researchers said on Tuesday.
A review of 15 studies involving 53,567 gay and
bisexual men in the United States, Britain, Canada,
Australia, India, Taiwan, Peru and the Netherlands
failed to show a clear benefit for those who were
circumcised, researchers from the U.S. government's
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Circumcised men
infected with the
HIV, than those
finding was not
researchers said.
were 14 percent less likely to be
human immunodeficiency virus, or
who were uncircumcised, but the
statistically significant, the CDC
"You can't necessarily say with confidence that we're
seeing a true effect there," said the CDC's Gregorio
Millett, who led the study that appeared in the Journal
of the American Medical Association.
"Overall, we're not finding a protective effect
associated with circumcision for gay and bisexual
men," Millett said in a telephone interview.
Studies involving men in Africa, where the AIDS
epidemic is primarily spread by sex between men and
women, showed that male circumcision halved the risk
of female-to-male HIV infection.
Experts say this reduced HIV risk may be because cells
on the inside of the foreskin, the part of the penis cut
off in circumcision, are especially susceptible to HIV
infection. The virus also may survive better in a warm,
wet environment like that found beneath the foreskin.
But whether circumcision might lower the risk of HIV
infection in sex between men had remained unclear.
Gay and bisexual men play a much larger role in AIDS
in many countries outside of Africa, the epidemic's
epicenter.
For example, the CDC last week said 48 percent of the
1.1 million Americans infected with HIV are men who
have sex with men. More than three-quarters of U.S.
men are circumcised.
"We really cannot recommend overall male circum-
cision as a strategy for men who have sex with men in the
United States," Millett said.
The CDC's Dr. Peter Kilmarx, who was not involved in
the research, said the agency is preparing formal
recommendations on circumcision in the United States,
with a draft due to be made public early next year.
Millett said there are signs circumcision might protect
certain gay and bisexual men depending on sexual
practices. The virus can be transmitted through blood or
semen.
Studies in Australia and Peru showed that men who
engaged in insertive anal sex only and were not being
penetrated by male sex partners got a significant
protective effect from HIV infection from being
circumcised, Millett said.
"Of course, if you're being penetrated by a partner during
sex, you being circumcised is not going to protect you
from HIV infection," Millett said.
Millett said two U.S. studies and one in Peru conducted
before the introduction in 1996 of combination drug
treatment for HIV infections, called highly active
antiretroviral therapy, or HAART, showed that
circumcised men were 53 percent less likely to be
infected with HIV than uncircumcised men.
He said it is possible that since the advent of HAART,
which helped turn HIV infection into a chronic disease
rather than a death sentence for many people, some gay
and bisexual men may have felt freer to engage in risky
sexual practices.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27074050/
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The Other Face of
Circumcision in HIV War
Michael Bahinyoza
HIV Prevention
Daily Monitor
August 1, 2008
The Geneva-based World Health Organisation has
reportedly, over the last couple of months been leading
UN Agencies (UNAIDS), UNICEF, UNFPA) to support
particularly African countries to develop male
circumcision
policies
and
strategies
in
the
broader/comprehensive HIV prevention strategy.
The follows results from the three Randomised
Controlled Trials (RCTs) undertaken in Kisumu (Kenya),
Rakai (Uganda), and Orange Farm (South Africa) showing that male circumcision could reduce the risk of heter-
Continued from page 47 – The Other Face of Circumcision
viral load and thus infectivity to the female partner.
osexually acquired HIV infection in men by about 60
per cent.
For now, it may be wise for our own Ministry of Health,
the medical fraternity and the public to be cautious and
not to be overwhelmed by the hyperbolic’ promotion of
male circumcision in HIV prevention.
According to media reports, Rwanda has already rolled
out male circumcision in the military, a country where
ironically, circumcised men have a higher rate of HIV
than ‘intact’ men. (www.circumcisionandHIV.com)
A colleague told me last week, seven of his friends (all
of them single) had been circumcised in this ended
month of July and that the RCT findings had majorly
influenced their decision. It is worth noting that
because of information deficiency and other challenges,
there have been a number of exaggerated claims made
for the reported efficacy of male circumcision in
preventing HIV infection.
Many people are not even aware that the results from
the above mentioned randomized Controlled Trials are
about prevention of female-to-male HIV infection.
Secondly, not many young people (and probably adults
as well) seem aware that the trial results clearly
indicated that male circumcision reduces the risk
infection. Unfortunately, many young male adolescents
and some men prefer reading or hearing reducing the
risk as eliminating the risk. Undoubtedly, there is ‘a
heaven of difference’ between risk reduction and risk
elimination and hopefully, this can be well grasped in
the preventive campaign against HIV/Aids.
Reputable senior research fellows, Garry Dowsett and
Murray Coach, from Australia suggest in their findings;
“The use of male circumcision in preventing HIV
infection” that the results of the three RCTs contain
exaggerated claims. In his work; “The Demonisation of
the Foreskin and the Rise of Circumcision in Britain.”
Darby RJL, too brings to the fore what he considers
information that the respective supervisors of the three
RCTs should not have ignored.
Apparently it turns out that all the three RCTs were
terminated early, arguably before the incidence of HIV
infection in the circumcised males caught up with the
incidence of infection in the non-circumcised males. It
is therefore highly probably that non-circumcised got
infected more quickly than their circumcised friends
because the circumcised males required a period of
abstinence after circumcision, suggesting, among other
things, likely that if the studies had continued as
initially scheduled, the difference in infection incidence
between the two groups males would have been small.
As has been noted by our own Ministry of Health, male
circumcision does not protect women. Since viral load
is the cardinal predictor of the risk of HIV
transmission, male circumcision would not reduce the
Pre-marital chastity and fidelity, nurtured and supported
by needed life skills within viable and dynamic support
groups, remain time-tested HIV/AID preventive
weaponry as the infected and affected are given needed
care and support.
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Breakthrough Reported in
Malaria Drug Trial
Kakaire Kirunda
Daily Monitor
May 1, 2008
Canadian scientists working with Ugandans at Makerere
University have reported that their novel drug candidates
to treat malaria have demonstrated good safety in their
first toxicity tests in animals.
This was announced on Monay in a press release by the
Canada-based Upstream Biosciences Inc. The Institute
was founded in 2004 in the Canadian province of British
Columbia.
“Researchers reported that Upstream’s anti-malarial
candidates were well tolerated, with no signs of serious
toxicity at likely healing dosages,” the release reads in
part.
According to the researchers, activity in this range in a
new class of anti-malarial drugs has the potential to
represent an important advance in the treatment of a
resistant form of the disease.
The release said the new data represents the third set of
positive toxicity results in animals obtained by
researchers at Makerere University for Upstream’s drug
candidates
for
malaria,
trypanosomiasis
and
leishmaniasis, all diseases caused by related parasites.
“These first positive toxicity results in animals for our
anti-malarial candidates mark an important step in our
programmed to develop safe and effective drugs to fight
this pervasive condition,” Mr. Joel Bellenson, CEO
Upstream was quoted as saying.
However, in a follow-up interview with Daily Monitor,
Mr Bellenson said researchers can now move on to
testing the drugs in sick animals,” and we know how high
a dosage ceiling we can use for this testing.”
Continued from page 47 – Breakthrough Reported in
Malaria Drug Trial
Asked how soon human trials would begin, he said it
was hard to make precise predictions about the timing
of trials.
He added: “Drug development has several stages and
sometimes requires taking one step back to make two
steps forward. When we get the animal efficacy data, it
will tell us whether we need to use our artificial
intelligence software to make the drugs more potent or
less toxic.”
Mr. Bellenson explained that the current malarial drugs
have a similar mode of action and the parasites become
resistant to chemicals related to these older drugs quite
easily.
“Our compounds are a completely different chemical
structure and are therefore likely to work by blocking
different proteins activities,” he added.
“In addition, our compounds may have another
advantage to work against sleeping sickness, Nagana
and kala azar as well as malaria. This would simplify
drug stocking logistics and administration to sick
patients.”
Malaria is the leading cause of illness and death in
Uganda, accounting for 25-40 per cent of all outpatient
visits at healthcare facilities.
Up to 20 per cent of all hospital admissions and 15 per
cent of in-patient deaths are due to malaria.
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Farmers Reap Fortunes of
Malaria Treatment
Godwin Muhwezi-Bonge
Daily Monitor
March 4, 2008
Mr. John Tabaro, an elderly farmer in Kabale District
who has tilled the land for years growing mainly
sorghum made his first Shs2 million last year thanks to
a “little-known” crop Sweet Wormwood whose
scientific name is Artemsia annua.
“I made about Shs2 million after three months of
growing [it], I had never made so much money before
[and now] I managed to take my children to school and
all I think of is more and more artemesia,” he said
gleefully.
Such is the reception the alien crop has received in an
area with no tradition of growing cash crops that after
three seasons of uninterrupted cash flow, farmers are
considering replacing of traditional food crops with the
quick maturing artemesia, a crop used in the production
of artemesinin - an ingredient in the manufacture of antimalaria drugs such as Coartem, and Artemether.
“I have so far given up on growing sorghum, a traditional
crop regarded highly in the area. “I prefer Artemesia
because it matures faster [3 months] and gives higher
returns compared to sorghum that takes seven months,”
he said.
Two years ago, farmers like Mr. Tabaro were hard to
find. “People were at first reluctant to take on the crop
because of the bad experience they had had with the now
defunct Agro Management [a company that introduced
pyrethrum growing in the area],” Mr Cleth Rugwiza, the
extension officer of Aflo Alpine Pharma Ltd (AAPL),
said.
Introduced in 2005, artemesia was not well received as
farmers remained reluctant to hurriedly replace their food
crops with the untested cash crop on fragmented pieces of
land.
When the pioneers registered successes, Mr Rugwiza
said, more farmers then clamoured for more seedlings
from extension agents. Outgrowers have since grown
from 350 farmers when the crop was first introduced to
more than 12,000 farmers to date.
“We did a lot of work to diminish the negative experience
through sensitization in churches, and public gatherings,”
he said.
Mr. Aggrey Bitungukye, another farmer, said:” At first, I
thought a kilogramme of dried leaves was difficult to
raise but when I managed to raise about 220 kilograms
from my piece of land, I picked up even more interest.”
Income Boost
Persuaded by the need to diversify incomes of
subsistence farmers in Kabale, Aflo Alpine Pharma
Limited, introduced the cultivation of a locally grown,
affordable anti-malarial treatments, for distribution in
local, regional, and international markets.
“Kabale was chosen for its alpine climate akin to that of
Vietnam and India where the plant is mainly grown,” Mr
Rugwiza said.
Chloroquine and quinine-based derivatives have long
been used in the treatment of malaria in sub-Saharan
Africa, where the disease kills about 3,000 per day.
However, patients’ increasing resistance to traditional
anti-malarial drugs, and the need to stem off malarial
deaths has given birth to a new line of treatment in
Artemesinin Combination Therapy, of which artemesinia
extracted from Artemesia annua forms a vital component.
NDA to Licence Herbalists,
Regulate Food
Kayinga said he had reported to the resident district
commissioner. He noted that half of the healers in
Masaka were from Tanzania, Burundi and the DR Congo.
Herbert Mugagga
"We are planning a major operation against illegal
healers. We expelled the Maasai from Kenya, who had
flocked the region, because of their dubious characters,"
said Kayinga.
Daily Monitor
November 19, 2007
The National Drug Authority will start licensing
herbalists in the country to ease monitoring. This was
disclosed by Dr Josephine Nanyanzi, the Authority’s
Inspector of Drugs in an interview with Daily Monitor
last week.
Dr. Nanyanzi said the institution is currently holding
consultative meetings with herbalists and at the same
time sensitizing them to come up with appropriate
guidelines. He said the move aims to ensure that
premises where herbal medicines are stored or sold are
suitable for the purpose. “We are mandated to ensure
that the available drugs are of good quality and best of
the public.
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Policy to Regulate
Herbalists in Offing
"But we still have a problem with the Tanzanians. These
illegal healers sexually exploit women clients, exposing
them to HIV/AIDS."
The southern regional Police chief, Andrew Sorowen,
urged immigration officials to stop foreign healers from
entering the country illegally. He noted that local leaders
were no longer crosschecking the documents of new
people coming to reside in their areas.
"The LCs should check for stamped letters from their
counterparts where the new residents originate because
we may end up harbouring criminals." Sorowen blamed
child sacrifice on illegal traditional healers.
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Tanzanians kill Albinos for
Luck
Daily Monitor
November 11, 2007
BBC, Tanzania
April 4, 2008
Government has drafted a policy to regulate operations
of traditional healers. “If passed, the policy would
create an enabling environment for the full and suitable
utilization of traditional and complementary medicine
in addressing some of the challenges facing the natural
healthcare system,” said Mr. Franklin Nsubuga
Muyonjo, a ministry of health consultant.
Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete has ordered a
crackdown on witchdoctors who use body parts from
albinos in magic potions to allegedly bring people good
luck or fortune.
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Uganda: 23,000 Illegal
Healers in Masaka
Dismus Buregyeya
16 July 2008
A total of 23,115 traditional healers in Masaka are not
registered, according to the district traditional healers
and herbalists' association.
The chairman, Ssalongo Kayinga, told The New Vision
on Tuesday that Nyendo Division alone had 343 illegal
healers. "We have only 38 registered healers in Nyendo
yet the division has 381 practicing. The situation is
worse at the district level where out of the 24,000
traditional healers only 885 are registered," he said.
“This is senseless cruelty. It must stop forthwith,” Jakaya
Kikwete said on television, AFP news agency reports.
“I am told that people kill albinos and chop their body
parts, including fingers, believing they can get rich when
mining or fishing,” he said. The order comes after the
murder of 19 albinos in the last year.
The BBC’s Vicky Ntetema in Dar es Salaam says there is
a widespread belief in Tanzania that the condition is the
result of a curse put on the family.
Old women with red eyes have been killed in parts of
Tanzania, after being accused of witchcraft, she says.
In the past, Tanzania’s Albino Society has accused the
government of turning a blind eye to the killing of
albinos.
There are some 270,000 albinos among Tanzania’s
population of some 35 million, the highest population in
East Africa.
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Continued from page 49 - – Farmers reap Fortunes
“We extract up to 98.6 per cent of Artemesinin from
dried leaves of artemesia annua,” Mr. Robert
Tumushabe, the factory supervisor of AAPl, said. The
factory processes 12 tonnes of dried artemesia leaves
per day. One tonne of dried Artemesia leaves produces
six kilogrammes of crude artemesinin crystals.
The Artemesin is then sold to the world’s renowned
pharmaceutical
companies
such
as
Cipla
Pharmaceutical of India from where Artemesinin-based
drugs are manufactured.
“Our market is worldwide but we sell most of our bulk
in India,” Mr Freedie Zagyeda, the chief executive
officer of AAPL, said.
There is growing demand for Artemesinin as leading
pharmaceuticals on manufacture of Artemesinin-based
drugs after World Health Organisation authorized
Artemesinin combination therapy as the new line of
malaria treatment.
Unfortunately, this demand has not translated into
higher Artemesinin prices on the world market instead
prices have been falling. World market prices fell from
$350 per Kg in 2005 to $200 per Kg in 2007, a thing
that has negatively impacted on the company’s bottom
line.
Although Mr Zagyenda maintains that the falling
Artemesinin prices on the world market will not affect
the company’s relationship with the farmers,
testimonies show that the farmers are already feeling
the pinch. Out-growers are complaining that their
produce is rotting away in their stores as the company
remains reluctant to collect.
“I have sacks of dry leafs stuck here,” Mr Bitungukye
said. “Much as I would like to keep growing artemesia,
I cannot because of lack of market.”
Mr Tabaro said: “Nowadays these people [AAPL] buy
on credit. They are not treating us as they did
previously.” He added: ‘I have stop planting because I
cannot sell.”
Growing Stock
Mr Zagyenda said the company cannot abandon
farmers and will stick to its promise of buying whatever
stock the farmers have.
“We provide free seedlings to farmers through our
extension agents; it is a joint investment. That is
assurance enough that we have interest in their stock,”
Mr Zagyhenda said.
According to him, the company slowed down on
buying as a way to contain the growing stock. “We
slowed down on buying as a way of storing the stock
with the farmers. Currently we have more stock than the
available warehouse space,” he said. “As soon as we
dispose of the stock in our stores, we will begin buying.”
He said buying on credit is part of the company’s new
system of “streamlining field payment.” The company
discarded the “on-spot payment system”, though popular
with farmers, had its own shortfalls.
“Farmers would bring to buying centres more or less
produce than anticipated, which disorganised our
accounting system” Mr Zagyenda said. “We later adopted
an organized way of buying where we issue holder
certificates to farmers for whatever we have bought.”
Speculators
He believes the current discontent among farmers is
mainly fuelled by speculators who were caught off guard
by the company’s change of heart.
“They buy quantities in the hope of cashing in on the
stock during the time of scarcity. They are now getting
impatient,” he said. “Genuine farmers stay put because
we will begin buying in two months time.”
AAPL operates an out-grower scheme supported by the
company’s nucleus farms. Farmers receive technical
advice from the company’s extension who have basic
training in the agronomy and management of Artemesia
annua.
“We train extension workers to assist farmers with the
growing of Artemesia,” Mr Rugwiza said. It is these
agents that also determine the quality of the leaf. The
agents mainly operate in the five regions of Kabale
District.
Farmers receive free seedlings from extension agents.
Farmers then plant the seedlings, which take about 3 to 4
months to mature before harvest.
The leaves are dried for 2 to 3 days and later sold at
collection centres before it is transported to the factory
for processing. A kilogramme of dried artemesia annua
leaves cost Shs1,000 per kg. The plant is best suited to
the alpine climate present in Kabale.
And as such, the plant has not encountered diseases,
which makes it easier for farmers. Trials are also going
on in the surrounding district of Mbabara and
Ntunogamo. “There are dry leaves waiting to be collected
in Mbarara,” Mr Rugwiza said.
As the world prices of Artemesinin continue to tumble,
the company is planning to diversify its product range.
“We conducting trials for new crops,” Mr Zagyenda said.
The company has hired services of an Indian Agronomist,
Dr S.K. Natarajan to carry out the trials.
☻☻☻☻☻☻
‘Malnutrition Increases
Resistance to ARVs’
A quarter of people on ARVs are malnourished. These
deter the drugs from acting as required.
Jane Nafula
Daily Monitor
July 21. 2008
“When you are infected, you have to increase on the food
intake. An additional mug of nutritious porridge, Katogo
[beans with cassava or matooke (banana) or groundnuts
or greens], and other snacks must be taken between meals
so that the body gets the required amount of energy to
fight the virus,” Dr Mwadime said. “When the virus is in
its advanced stage, at least two mugs of nutritious
porridge are recommended.”
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Severe malnutrition among people living with
HIV/Aids is one of the factors forcing the HIV virus to
become resistant to antiretroviral drugs.
The Regional Nutrition and HIV/Aids Advisor for the
Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance (FANTA)
Project, Dr Robert Mwadime, said malnourished
patients have thin muscles and weak bodies that deter
the drugs from acting as required.
“Patients who are thin lack the muscles and nutrients
needed to support the process of absorbing,
metabolizing and distributing the drugs in the body,”
Dr Mwadime said.
Dr Mwadime told a workshop on nutrition and HIV
monitoring and evaluation at Entebbe last week.
He said even a deficiency of one specific nutrient can
affect this process.
Participants were drawn from Kenya, Tanzania,
Rwanda, Zambia, Namibia, Malawi and Ethiopia.
Dr Mwadime said malnutrition may lead to excessive
interaction of the drugs with the nutrients and affect its
effectiveness. He said the HIV virus can also become
resistant if a patient does not take the drugs as
prescribed.
The resistance of HIV to ARVs is one of the major
challenges facing the government’s programme of
prolonging the lives of its patients. Dr Mwadime said
the number of malnourished people living with
HIV/Aids is increasing.
“It is estimated that one of every four people starting to
take ARVs, is malnourished,” he said. About 30,000 of
170,000 people who are on antiretroviral therapy are
likely to be malnourished.
Dr Mwadime also said that between 30 and 40 per cent
of malnourished children who are admitted at
Mwanamujimu clinics have HIV/Aids. Mwanamujimu
are nutrition centres where malnourished children are
put on special diet to regain lost body nutrients. He said
the World Health Organisation requires people who are
HIV positive to eat more food than they were eating
before they became infected.
9 Million Ugandans Starving
– Museveni
213,000 Million People Starving in Sub-Saharan
Africa. Food is exported to neighbouring countries.
John Augustine Emojong
Daily Monitor
October 20, 2008
President Yoweri Museveni has revealed that close to
nine million Ugandans are starving due to food shortage
caused by the effects of climate changes.
In a speech read for him by the Third Deputy Prime
Minister and Minister for Information and National
Guidance, Mr Kirunda Kivejinja during celebrations to
mark the World Food Day in Tororo on Thursday, Mr.
Museveni said at least 213 million people in Sub-Saharan
Africa are starving due on food shortage.
He said the climate change, which is affecting food
production, is a big threat to Uganda’s economy.
He said the government is improving the meteorological
department to enhance climate change forecasts that
would give farmers better guidance.
“We need to strengthen our meteorological departments
so as to be able to give our farmers accurate information
on climate change. We have been relying on guesswork
most of the time,” Mr Museveni said.
Mr Museveni said the government has increased funding
to the National Agricultural Advisory Services
programmes to help farmers diversify food production.
World Food Programme (WFP) representative Hakan
Tongul revealed that 700,000 people are facing starvation
in Karamoja sub-region.
Mr Tongul blamed the ever increasing food prices across
the world on bio-energy production which has been on
the rise in the past few years.
He, however, noted that though Uganda is not very much
affect by the effects of bio-energy production, much of
the food produced is exported to neighbouring
Continued from page 53 – 9 M Ugandans Starving
countries.
“It is the neighbouring countries such as Kenya and
Sudan that are causing food shortages for Uganda
because much of the food produced is taken there,”
Mr Tongul said.
He said the WP was now changing its strategy from
food aid to food existence by supporting food
production programmes rather than keep buying
and donating it, except in special circumstances.
He revealed that last year, the WP spent $55
million to purchase food in Uganda, adding that
WP expects to spend close to $100 million next
year if the situation continues to worsen.
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Uganda’s Population
Growth at 1.2 M Annually
Evelyn Lirri
Daily Monitor
June 27, 2008
A fertility rate of 6.7 per cent among Ugandan
women is contributing to the country’s high
population which experts say is now growing by
1.2 million people annually.
This surge in population growth, which is
reportedly among the highest worldwide threatens
to put enormous pressure on the government’s
ability to provide social services like health,
education and housing.
“Every year the population of Uganda increases by
over 1.2 million people, and at this rate, the country
will have 130 million people by 2050,” the
Population Secretariat said in a statement to
announce this years’
Population Day set for July 11.
Uganda will celebrate the day in Mbarara District
under the theme “Promote and Invest in family
Planning for National Development’.
The day focuses on the right to access to family
planning information and services to help people
make informed choices about reproductive health
issues.
“This theme is timely because Uganda’s population
is growing at a high rate and there are few
measures in place to check this, “the statement
reads in part.
“Uganda’s population grew from 4.8 million people in
1950 to 24.3 million in 2002. It is estimate to be about 30
million today.” It says that a high population will
undermine the country’s efforts to achieve socialeconomic transformation and development.”
The Population Secretariat which falls under the Ministry
of Finance, Planning and Economic Development,
observes that the high population has a bearing on the
current rising food prices and food shortages both in
Uganda and globally.
Although the availability and use of effective
contraception is a key to slowing population growth, only
24 percent of married women in Uganda reportedly use
contraceptives.
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Briefly - Condom Shortage by
October – MP
Daily Monitor
June 27, 2008
Uganda is likely to face a shortage of reproductive health
commodities by October this Network for African
Women Ministers and Parliamentarians members said.
“We are likely to have a severe shortage of condoms by
October, Mityana MP Sylivia Namabidde said. “It will be
very severe if the Ministry of Health does not prioritise
these commodities.” Members of NAWMP said the
budget had not addressed the issue of reproductive health
yet the country is among those committed to attaining
Millennium Development goals and especially the fifth
MDG. The fifth MDG aims at reducing of maternal
deaths to three quarters by the year 2015. However, the
members said the country was unlikely to achieve this
since the budget never mentioned anything about
maternal health.
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Only 38% Ugandans Know
Their HIV Status
Daily Monitor
April 19, 2008
The Minister of Health, Steven Mallinga has said 38 per
cent Ugandans know their HIV status and said this
number is still low if HIV/Aids is to be controlled and
prevented from spreading further. Dr Mallinga disclosed
this on Thursday while launching the Routine HIV
Counseling and Testing at Hoima Regional Referral
Hospital. The Minister called upon the entire population
to go for free HIV/Aids counseling and testing.
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Mission Statement
Our aim at The African Traditional Herbal
Research Clinic is to propagate and promote the
awareness in Afrikan peoples at home and abroad of
their health, biodiversity, history and cultural
richness. We gather pertinent information on these
issues and disseminate these freely to our people in
Uganda, the rest of the continent, and anywhere in
the Diaspora where Afrikans are located…. One of
the main ingredients for increasing poverty, sickness,
exploitation and domination is ignorance of one's
self, and the environment in which we live.
Knowledge is power and the forces that control our
lives don't want to lose control, so they won't stop at
anything to keep certain knowledge from the people.
Therefore, we are expecting a fight and opposition to
our mission. However, we will endeavor to carry
forward this work in grace and perfect ways.
“Where there is no God, there is no culture.
Where there is no culture, there is no
indigenous knowledge. Where there is no
indigenous knowledge, there is no history.
Where there is no history, there is no science
or technology. The existing nature is made
by our past. Let us protect and conserve our
indigenous knowledge.”
☻☻☻☻☻☻
CALENDAR
OF
EVENTS
SPECIAL EVENT:
PLACE: AFRIKAN TRADITIONAL HERBAL RESEARCH CLINIC
TIME:
Herb of the Month
KATAZAMITI (Bridelia micrantha)
Despite intensive efforts to control malaria and HIV/AIDS,
these diseases continue to be the greatest health problems
facing Africa. It is estimated that there are at least 300
million clinical cases (worldwide) of malaria per annum,
making it and HIV/AIDS (33-36 million worldwide) two of
the top three killers among diseases in Africa.
Katazamiti, native to sub-Saharan Africa is a semideciduous to deciduous tree up to 20 m tall with a dense
rounded crown and tall, bare stem. All parts of the plant are
used in traditional medicine. Bridelia micrantha, as it is
formerly called, is traditionally used in the treatment of
stomach ailments and diseases such as gastritis,
salmonellosis, gastro-enteritis, diarrhea and constipation,
tapeworms and as an emetic for poisons (causes vomiting).
Scientific studies have shown that extracts of the whole
stem demonstrate antimicrobial activity by inhibiting the
growth of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) and
campylobacter jejuni/coli. It is used as a treatment for skin
problems such as ulcers, boils and rashes; for respiratory
problems such as persistent cough, TB, pneumonia,
bronchitis and pleurisy; as an analgesic (pain reliever); as
an antimalarial; for toothache and gum diseases; for painful
menstruation; to prevent abortion; as a stimulate and
restorative tonic (alternative) for fortifying pregnant
women; for sickle cell anemia, HIV/AIDS; and anemia in
general. Preliminary research on medical properties of
Katazamiti has shown this herb to be beneficial in treating
HIV/AIDS as it cures diarrhea and stomach discomfort and
has anti-cancer properties, which are common illnesses in
AIDS and contributes to the well-being of the patient. It has
also been shown to be a possible principle inhibitor to HIV1 reverse transcriptase. Katazamiti is also traditionally used
in treating psychological problems such as neurosis and
psychosis and for protection against one’s enemies.
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Afrikan Traditional Herbal Research Clinic
1175A Mukalazi Road, P.O. Box 29974
Bukoto, Kampala, Uganda East Africa
Phone: +256 (0) 782 917 902
Email: [email protected]
ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED
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African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic Why Africa Fears Western Medicine NEWSLETTER

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