The Standard | Vaccine to block mosquitoes from spreading malaria

Published on 07/12/2011

By Peter Orengo

Three leaders in malaria vaccine development have announced a collaboration to evaluate a potential vaccine candidate designed to prevent transmission of malaria from mosquitoes to humans.

Path Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niaid) and the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Centre for Immunisation Research say protein Pfs25 vaccine could contribute to the eventual eradication of malaria.

The partners intend to conduct clinical trials in healthy adults to assess their safety.

The new partnership was announced at a presentation of the 60th annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

"Pfs25 is one of the transmission blocking vaccine (TBV) approaches that aim to block transmission of malaria from mosquitoes to humans by preventing the malaria parasite from developing in the mosquito," said Ashley Birkett, director of research and development at MVI.

Reduce pressure

While such vaccines would not directly protect an immunised individual from developing clinical malaria, they would reduce chances that other individuals in the community get malaria by preventing the spread of infection by the mosquito. Malaria kills nearly 800,000 people per year, most of them children under age five in Africa.

While drugs and insecticides have had a significant impact on fighting the disease, resistance of mosquitoes pose challenges.

TBV would work in synergy with the interventions, since blocking transmission of the parasite would reduce the pressure on other measures, thereby slowing the development of resistance and thus extending their effectiveness.

The Standard | Vaccine to block mosquitoes from spreading malaria

Published on 07/12/2011

By Peter Orengo

Three leaders in malaria vaccine development have announced a collaboration to evaluate a potential vaccine candidate designed to prevent transmission of malaria from mosquitoes to humans.

Path Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niaid) and the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Centre for Immunisation Research say protein Pfs25 vaccine could contribute to the eventual eradication of malaria.

The partners intend to conduct clinical trials in healthy adults to assess their safety.

The new partnership was announced at a presentation of the 60th annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

"Pfs25 is one of the transmission blocking vaccine (TBV) approaches that aim to block transmission of malaria from mosquitoes to humans by preventing the malaria parasite from developing in the mosquito," said Ashley Birkett, director of research and development at MVI.

Reduce pressure

While such vaccines would not directly protect an immunised individual from developing clinical malaria, they would reduce chances that other individuals in the community get malaria by preventing the spread of infection by the mosquito. Malaria kills nearly 800,000 people per year, most of them children under age five in Africa.

While drugs and insecticides have had a significant impact on fighting the disease, resistance of mosquitoes pose challenges.

TBV would work in synergy with the interventions, since blocking transmission of the parasite would reduce the pressure on other measures, thereby slowing the development of resistance and thus extending their effectiveness.

The Standard | House holds chores to burn calories

Published on 09/01/2012

Wash your car: Well, it takes 15-20 minutes to do it but will warm up your body and get the blood rushing, giving you a start to your day. Research shows that you will also burn around 80 – 100 calories and save some money too.BY BOB OTIENO
Does signing up at the gym seem like a huge task? Maybe regaining your energy levels by actively participating in daily chores can help you finally get on with your life and get fit. Interestingly, doing basic chores at home or office can help you burn off those calories and help you get more energetic. Here are a few basic chores to get started with:

Dusting the house: Keeping your house clean can help you burn approximately 210 calories an hour. So, put on some music and get started on your spring cleaning!

Cooking food: Touted as one of the most therapeutic hobbies, cooking is a lot more than a stress buster. You can burn up to 140 calories per hour but spend time cooking healthy delights. This is also because your body is always on the move all around the kitchen getting this, getting that, washing dusting and cleaning after all the work is done.

The regular Use of stairs: This is oldest and the most popular calorie burning technique that can help you burn up to 300 calories per hour. And if you add a grocery bag or weighted items to this activity, the calorie burning count can go up to 520 calories per hour! All this climbing and walking also helps in shaping up your legs, working your cardio respiratory system thus improving your stamina and performance. So next time if you were to choose, opt for the stairs than lifts or escalators.

Walk when you talk: Do not be sedentary. Literally, be mobile whenever possible, walk around the room or the gallery when you talk over phone. This gives you a break and of course and burn a few calories too. You can also walk to your neighbour’s or friends house, if its ok with them and close instead of phoning.

Getting coffee and water: It doesn’t take much time to walk up to the water cooler or dispenser or the coffee machine to get a mug full for yourself. It would help you loose 70 calories at least.

Brisk walk or Jog around your estate: During your free time, instead of lazing on the sofa watching TV, get up and keep your body on the move. Create time at least to brisk walk around your compound or estate. Such an action will keep your heart on toes, therefore help burn calories. It is also a good way to shed off some weight.

There are many other ways to burn 70-500 calories a day. These are few bonus calories that you can burn anywhere irrespective of being at a gym or a field or playing a sport. Look around and check what other activities you can add to your daily movements.

The Standard | House holds chores to burn calories

Published on 09/01/2012

Wash your car: Well, it takes 15-20 minutes to do it but will warm up your body and get the blood rushing, giving you a start to your day. Research shows that you will also burn around 80 – 100 calories and save some money too.BY BOB OTIENO
Does signing up at the gym seem like a huge task? Maybe regaining your energy levels by actively participating in daily chores can help you finally get on with your life and get fit. Interestingly, doing basic chores at home or office can help you burn off those calories and help you get more energetic. Here are a few basic chores to get started with:

Dusting the house: Keeping your house clean can help you burn approximately 210 calories an hour. So, put on some music and get started on your spring cleaning!

Cooking food: Touted as one of the most therapeutic hobbies, cooking is a lot more than a stress buster. You can burn up to 140 calories per hour but spend time cooking healthy delights. This is also because your body is always on the move all around the kitchen getting this, getting that, washing dusting and cleaning after all the work is done.

The regular Use of stairs: This is oldest and the most popular calorie burning technique that can help you burn up to 300 calories per hour. And if you add a grocery bag or weighted items to this activity, the calorie burning count can go up to 520 calories per hour! All this climbing and walking also helps in shaping up your legs, working your cardio respiratory system thus improving your stamina and performance. So next time if you were to choose, opt for the stairs than lifts or escalators.

Walk when you talk: Do not be sedentary. Literally, be mobile whenever possible, walk around the room or the gallery when you talk over phone. This gives you a break and of course and burn a few calories too. You can also walk to your neighbour’s or friends house, if its ok with them and close instead of phoning.

Getting coffee and water: It doesn’t take much time to walk up to the water cooler or dispenser or the coffee machine to get a mug full for yourself. It would help you loose 70 calories at least.

Brisk walk or Jog around your estate: During your free time, instead of lazing on the sofa watching TV, get up and keep your body on the move. Create time at least to brisk walk around your compound or estate. Such an action will keep your heart on toes, therefore help burn calories. It is also a good way to shed off some weight.

There are many other ways to burn 70-500 calories a day. These are few bonus calories that you can burn anywhere irrespective of being at a gym or a field or playing a sport. Look around and check what other activities you can add to your daily movements.

The Standard | ICT experts call for adoption of technology in health sector

Published on 04/12/2011

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Kenya is polio free, says Health Minister

By FREDRICK OBURA

Health officials are calling on the Government to speed up legal, access, and digital signature policies to scale up e-health programs in the country.

Speaking at the just concluded e-health summit in Nairobi, the experts drawn from different parts of the world said without commitment from the Government, emerging health innovations might not benefit Kenyans.

"Without specific policies to help governments harness technology in health, the advancement in ICT will not help improve the state of health," said Prof Yunkap Kwankam, Chief Executive Global eHealth Consultants.

"Strategies would make e-health have impact and contribute immensely to the betterment of health in the country," he said.

Kwankam asked the government to develop legal policies to protect digitised health records from confidentiality risks.

He also asked the Government to scale up access policies to improve penetration of infrastructure such as Internet, computers and mobile phones.

He was speaking during a two-day e-health meeting organised by Aitec in Nairobi last week.

The gathering looked progress Kenya and the continent were making in the adoption of technology in health system.

Head of E-government Dr Catherine Getao said the State had started building a data-centre to host digitised health records from various hospitals.

She said the Government-funded Sh3.9 billion data centre would help digitise and centralise health information and records.

Currently, much of the health records are held in paper form — meaning one has to physically move to access some of the information, which in some instances costly and time consuming.

The data centre, located at Ruaraka, is the first of the three data facilities being put up by Government. The Treasury is set to build another data centre in Naivasha while Ministry of Information and Communication has plans to build a third one in Kawangware beginning next year.