Day: October 5, 2021

Researchers in Australia have shown a bacteria can sterilize and eradicate a disease-carrying mosquito that is responsible for spreading dengue, yellow fever and Zika.

Three million male Aedes aegypti, or yellow fever mosquitoes, were released in the trial at three sites in Northern Queensland state. They were reared at James Cook University in Cairns and sterilized with a naturally-occurring bacteria called Wolbachia.

Researchers say the bacteria appears to have changed part of the male insects’ reproductive biology, so that female mosquitoes that mate with them lay eggs that do not hatch.

The flying insects were released over a 20-week period in 2018. Mosquito numbers subsequently fell by more than 80%. When scientists returned the following year, they found one of the trial areas had almost no mosquitoes.

Nigel Beebe is an associate professor at the University of Queensland and research scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or CSIRO. He hopes the sterilization method will eventually be used in developing countries.

“We wanted to show in a developed country that the technology was robust, we could mass rear mosquitoes. It is not very expensive to mass rear mosquitoes and it is really the separation of the males from the females,” he said.

The Australian team plans to use a similar technique to suppress the virus-spreading Asian Tiger mosquito that has become established in the Torres Strait in northern Australia.

“At the moment we have to use relatively sophisticated technology to do that. But we are now trying to build something that is much more robust and can be used in tropical countries and will be relatively cheap to actually be able separate the males from the females. The mass rearing of the mosquitoes is actually pretty cheap to do. So, I think, absolutely we will have application in developing countries,” saId Beebe.

Researchers elsewhere are looking at ways to use sterile male mosquitos to curb the spread of malaria, but associate professor Beebe has said it was a “complicated” challenge.

More than 40% of people worldwide suffer from mosquito-borne diseases. The Australian team hopes its “environmentally-friendly mosquito control” method will help tackle current and future outbreaks of dengue and other debilitating diseases.

Source: Voice of America

Overview

UNHCR has been in Angola for 43 years since the signing of the ‘Accord de Siege’ in February 1977. During this time, UNHCR has played an important role in the history of Angola such as leading the repatriation of Angolans who fled the long civil war. With reestablishment of peace in 2002, the Government of Angola asked for UNHCR support to facilitate repatriation of Angolan refugees. After voluntarily repatriation took place, from 2003 until 2015, more than 523,000 Angolan refugees returned, more than half coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). From 2015 to 2016, UNHCR Angola operation focused on urban refugees and asylum-seekers. In 2017, influx of refugees fleeing Kasai region in DRC forced the operation to scale up. The Field Office Dundo was established and, eventually, the Lovua Settlement in Lundo Norte. Currently, there are more than 56,000 refugees and asylum-seekers in Angola spread over provinces such as Luanda and Lunda Norte. These refugees represent a multitude of countries such as the DRC, Rwanda, Mauritania and others. They are located in several provinces across Angola, including Luanda and Lunda Norte. UNHCR is a key observer of the National Council for Refugees (CNR) and works with several partners on the ground to ensure that refugees and person at risk of statelessness are protected and have access to livelihood and durable solutions.

Refugees from DRC include regular caseload and Kasai caseload. Kasai caseload comprised of 9,720 individuals out of which 6,826 are residing in Lovua refugee settlement while 2,894 individuals are in out of camp settings. They are the refugees originating from Kasai region of DRC who came to Lunda Norte province in Angola as a result of conflict in 2017 and were given Prima Facie refugee status. The regular caseload consists of the remaining population (46,793) excluding the 2017 Kasai caseload and comprises of refugees and asylum-seekers who came to Angola as far as 35 years ago. The regular caseload includes urban refugees from different nationalities including Congolese, majority of them settled in Luanda but also in the other 12 provinces.

Source: UN High Commissioner for Refugees

A new study reveals the two-dose COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech is 90% effective at keeping someone from being hospitalized from the virus up to six months after receiving the second dose.

Researchers from Pfizer and U.S.-based health care consortium Kaiser Permanente observed the records of about 3.4 million people who were members of Kaiser’s Southern California health insurer and provider program between December 2020 and August of this year.

The study, published Monday in The Lancet medical journal, also revealed the vaccine was 93% effective against the highly contagious Delta variant for at least six months after the second shot.

But the researchers also found that the vaccine’s effectiveness against infection dropped from 88% one month after completing the regimen to 47% after six months.

The new study was published on the same day the European Union’s drug regulator approved the use of booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for those aged 18 years and older, but left it to individual countries to decide whether or not to recommend the shots for widespread use.

The European Medicines Agency said in a statement Monday that a booster dose of the Pfizer vaccine “may be considered at least 6 months after the second dose for people aged 18 years and older.”

The agency said people with a severely weakened immune system should be given a third dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine at least 28 days after they have received their second shot.

The guidance comes as some EU member states have already begun administering booster shots, while others are still debating how broadly to use boosters in their populations.

Meanwhile, the New York Times newspaper said Monday that Johnson & Johnson will ask the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve a booster shot of its single-dose COVID-19 vaccine.

The U.S. drugmaker announced last month that clinical trials show a second shot of its vaccine increased its effectiveness against the virus to 94% about two months after the first dose, which provided about 70% effectiveness.

Johnson & Johnson said the company is submitting the results of its studies to the FDA, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the European Medicines Agency and other health authorities for potential use of the vaccine as a booster eight months or later after the primary single-dose vaccination.

Johnson & Johnson’s request comes less than two weeks after the FDA authorized a third shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech two-dose COVID-19 vaccine for Americans 65 years old and above and adults at high risk of severe illness. The FDA is currently considering whether to approve a third shot of the two-dose Moderna vaccine.

Source: Voice of America

Background

Kasai Caseload

In 2017, around 35,000 Congolese refugees fled conflict and violence from Kasai region in DRC to Lunda Norte Province in Angola, leading UNHCR and the Government of Angola to declare an emergency situation. Lovua settlement was then established on Sep 2017. Since then, the 2017 Kasai refugees whose current population is 9,720 (6,826 in settlement), as they are referred to, have been granted asylum and provided with assistance and protection mainly in Lovua Refugee Settlement and other neighbouring areas within Lunda Norte. WFP provides food to refugees residing in settlement.

Regular Caseload

It comprises of 46,793 refugees, asylum-seekers and few others of concern from DRC, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and other countries who has been in Angola between 5-30 years. They are residing mostly in urban location. 82% of the total urban caseload reside in Luanda.

Source: UN High Commissioner for Refugees