The Tragedy Caused by Fake Antimalarial Drugs

Counterfeit antimalarials (mainly artemisinin derivatives) is a crucial health problem in developing countries, particularly in Africa. The illegal production, sale and distribution of fake drugs is a huge market evaluated to several billion of dollars and represents more than 50% of the pharmaceutical market in several African countries. Fake drugs have led to a very great number of deaths from untreated malaria or fatality provoked by toxic ingredients. These fake medicines increase the risk of artemisinin resistance developed by the use of sub therapeutic dosages of antimalarials. Tackling this criminal traffic is the objective of an international program created by WHO and involves the international police and custom organizations like INTERPOL. Several very important and encouraging results have been obtained, but the problem will be completely solved if genuine antimalarials, free-of-charge, are handed-over to populations in sub Sahara African countries

Connais Tu Le Pays?

Connais tu le pays ou fleurit l’oranger, Le pays des fruits d’or et des roses vermeil les? Ou la brise est plus douce, et l’oiseau plus leger, Ou dans toutw saison butinent les abeilles, Ou rayonne et sourit, comme un bienfait de Dieu, Un eternal princepts sous un ciel toujours bleu? Helas! Que ne puisje te suivre Vers ce rivage heureux, d’ou le sort m’exila! C’est la, c’eset la que jevoudrais vivre, Aimer, aimer et mourir! C’est la que jevoudrais vivre, c’est la! Oui, c’est la! Connais tu la maison ou l’on m’attend la bas? La sal le aux lambris d’or, ou des hommes de marbre M’appel lent dans la nuit en me tendant les bras? Et la cour ou l’on danse a l’ombre d’un grand arbre, Et le lac transparent, ou glissent sur les eaux Mille bateaux legers, pareils a des oiseaux! Helas! que ne puisje te suivre Vers ce pays lointain d’ou le sort m’exi la! C’est la, c’est la que je voudrais vivre, Aimer, aimer et mourir! C’est la que jevoudrais vivre, c’est la! oui, c’est la! Kow’st thou not that fair land where the orange tree grows, Land of fruits bright as gold and the reddest of roses? Where the birds fleeter fly, where the wind softer blows, Where all seasons around the honeybee ne’er dozes, Where the sun warmer shines, where each morning anew Spring eternal doth smile ‘neath a sky ever blue? Alas! Would that I were returning To my dear native land, where so happy was I! ‘Tis there, ‘tis there that I am yearning To live, to love, and to die! \u27Tis there that I am yearning To love and to die! Know’st not that my home waits me still in those lands? The hall shinning with gold, where the marbles sedately Are watching day and night as they stretch me their hands? And the court where we danc’d ‘neath trees ancient and stately? And the lake crystal clear, where on the waters glide A thousand airy boats, like birds upon the tide! Alas! Would that I were returning To my dear native land, where so happy was I! ‘Tis there, ‘tis there that I am yearning To love and to die

Dynamical correlations and screened exchange on the experimental bench: spectral properties of the cobalt pnictide BaCo2As2

Understanding the Fermi surface and low-energy excitations of iron or cobalt pnictides is crucial for assessing electronic instabilities such as magnetic or superconducting states. Here, we propose and implement a new approach to compute the low-energy properties of correlated electron materials, taking into account both screened exchange beyond the local density approximation and local dynamical correlations. The scheme allows us to resolve the puzzle of BaCo2As2, for which standard electronic structure techniques predict a ferromagnetic instability not observed in nature.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures + Supplementary materia

Hum.an cryptosporidiosis: an emerging parasitic disease of increasing importance in public health

Due à un protozoaire parasitant diverses espèces de mammifères, la cryp tosporidiose est une parasitose d’apparition récente en pathologie humaine mais qui a provoqué d’importantes épidémies dans différents pays. Habituellement asymptomatique chez les patients immunocompetents, elle est au contraire généralement très grave chez les immunodéprimés et en particulier chez les sidéens ou chez les transplantés, avec des formes intestinales pures qui peuvent se compliquer de localisations respiratoires. De diagnostic parfois difficile, la cryptosporidiose n’a pas de traitement spécifique réellement efficace. Sa pro phylaxie est particulièrement difficile, les formes infestantes (oocystes) généra lement véhiculées par l’eau de boisson résistant aux procédés habituels de désinfection industrielle. La mise au point de nouveaux procédés de purification et de tests permettant d’en vérifier les résultats est donc une urgence de santé publique. Sur un plan plus général, on ignore quels ont été les mécanismes de son passage de l’animal à l’homme. Certaines souches se sont d’ailleurs com plètement adaptées à ce nouvel hôte et sont génétiquement très différentes des souches d’origine animale. Elles sont responsables de transmissions interhu maines et jouent un rôle probablement essentiel dans les contaminations noso comiales.Cryptosporidiosis in human is an emerging parasitosis due to an intestinal and opportunistic protozoan : Cryptosporidium parvum. This parasite was described 100 years ago in calves and lambs. This zoonosis had emerged as a global public health problem in industrial countries for essentially two reasons. One is linked to its potentially life threatening evolution which remains practiccaly incurable, in severely immunocompromised patients (AIDS patients, transplant patients, young children with immature immunological system...). The other is the important warterbome outbreaks in industrial countries. Clinical forms of cryptosporidiosis range from asymptomatic to acute intestinal illness in immunocompetent host. In immunocompromised host, chronic or severe diarrhoeal diseases increase the morbidity and mortality. Moreover extra intestinal dissemination of parasites can accured (cholangitis) and pulmonary cryptosporidiosis are also frequently di scribed. This parasitosis is also caracterized by the lack of efficient therapy and insuffisant prophylactic measures. Numerical standard and legal regulation of Cryptosporidium was proposed. Furthermore the oocyts are extremelly resistant to conventional disinfectants. The control of water treatment is necessary to determine the efficiency of prophylactic measures. The significance of different Cryptosporidium parvum isolates could suggested the existence of different transmission cycles in human and merits futher investigations. The virulent potential of Cryptosporidium strains as well as individual susceptibility need further works to a better undestanding of epidemiological risk