Word: africa
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Curbing global cancer rates is not simply a matter of transferring the successful prevention methods from the U.S. and Europe to the developing world, however. The most common cancers outside our borders are caused by chronic infections with viruses - very different from the ones that afflict us. In Africa, for example, the three most common cancers are Kaposi's sarcoma (related to HIV infection) and liver and cervical cancer. In China, liver cancer is a huge problem. The good news is that while researchers are still working on an effective AIDS vaccine, they can vaccinate against the hepatitis B virus...
...malaria, which has for so long had its way with us, may at last have met its pharmaceutical match. Two breakthrough papers published early Monday morning in the New England Journal of Medicine report the success of a pair of new vaccines tested in groups of children in Africa. That could open the door to sweeping trials of the vaccines in seven African nations by early 2009 and a completed formulation ready for approval by 2011. "We are," says Dr. Christian Loucq, director of the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, "one step closer to the day when malaria will join diseases...
...nothing of the logistical headache of actually getting a vaccine to the people who need it - means millions more are still almost certain to die. For that reason the World Health Organization and other groups are stepping up their push to deliver pesticides and mosquito-resistant bed nets across Africa. Those efforts by themselves have rolled back parasite prevalence by 50% in Zambia. Add that to an even imperfect vaccine and you get closer and closer to the moment when today's plague becomes yesterday's memory...
That Ghana represents the more optimistic side of Africa carries great symbolism. During the continent's post-independence history, Ghana has often been a crucible of all Africa's hope. It was the first sub-Saharan African nation to gain independence from its colonial ruler, Britain, in 1957. Its first president, Kwame Nkrumah, was also a lead figure in the pan-African nationalist movement. That didn't stop Ghana from falling victim to the same demons that have plagued much of the continent since independence: Nkrumah was ousted in a military takeover in 1966 and the country has had four...
...curse," he said. That curse, or resource curse, as economists call it, describes a tendency for countries with abundant natural resources to be more corrupt, more prone to violence and unrest, and more iniquitous and impoverished than those without, something evident across the oil-rich states of West Africa. While corruption thrives in Ghana, it is encouraging that both candidates recognize the potential pitfalls of oil. Ghana has some experience in natural resources: it is the world's second-biggest cocoa producer, after neighboring Cote d"Ivoire, and Africa's second biggest gold producer, after South Africa...