West Africa Doctors Network

Each year between 50 000 to 100 000 women worldwide are affected by obstetric fistula, a hole in the birth canal. The development of obstetric fistula is directly linked to one of the major causes of maternal mortality: obstructed labour.
Women who experience obstetric fistula suffer constant incontinence, shame, social segregation and health problems. It is [...]

Patients with HIV/AIDS may live longer with the early start of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in low-income countries, new research has found. The researchers of the study, published on 16 January 2010 in AIDS Research and Therapy, acknowledge the dilemma financially-constrained low-income countries face in choosing between providing HIV treatment to more patients and [...]

Two papers published this week in PLoS Medicine by Margaret Kruk and colleagues investigate surgical provision in eight district hospitals in three sub-Saharan African countries. The authors, from the USA and Africa, show low levels of surgical care provision, a lack of specialist surgeons and anaesthetists, and low expenditure on surgical provision.

Targeting these reservoirs of latent cells may open door to new treatments
University of Michigan scientists have identified a new reservoir for hidden HIV-infected cells that can serve as a factory for new infections. The findings, which appear online March 7 in Nature Medicine, indicate a new target for curing the disease so those infected with [...]

A study into why some people are more resistant than others to diseases such as tuberculosis (TB) and leprosy has identified a new genetic variant which affects susceptibility to these diseases. The findings, published today in the journal Cell, may have implications for future treatments for the two conditions.
TB and leprosy, whilst seemingly very different [...]

The gene appears to orchestrate pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory responses
University of Washington (UW) researchers have identified a gene involved in susceptibility and resistance to tuberculosis. This same gene, they have found, has a role in the severity of leprosy, which is caused by a related pathogen. The researchers also have learned why this gene is important [...]

A clinical trial of a vaccine against a major cause of pneumonia and meningitis has shown that it can prevent three out of four cases of re-infection in HIV-infected adults in Africa.
The trials, conducted in Malawi and funded by the Wellcome Trust, studied the efficacy of a vaccine against infection with the Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria. [...]

A low-cost water purification technique published in Current Protocols in Microbiology could help drastically reduce the incidence of waterborne disease in the developing world. The procedure, which uses seeds from the Moringa oleifera tree, can produce a 90.00% to 99.99% bacterial reduction in previously untreated water, and has been made free to download as [...]

FAIRFAX, Va.—Can a drug that has been used to treat malaria for years possibly be used to treat breast cancer before it becomes invasive? That’s what researchers at George Mason University’s Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine (CAPMM) and Inova Breast Care Institute (IBCI) are trying to prove.

A new study shows that a novel antiviral compound is effective against the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus, including oseltamivir (Tamiflu)-resistant strains, according to scientists from Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The research, published February 26 in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens, suggests that the prodrug CS-8958 is a promising alternative [...]