Bioprospecting the African Renaissance: The new value of muthi in South Africa

This article gives an overview of anthropological research on bioprospecting in general and of available literature related to bioprospecting particularly in South Africa. It points out how new insights on value regimes concerning plant-based medicines may be gained through further research and is meant to contribute to a critical discussion about the ethics of Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS). In South Africa, traditional healers, plant gatherers, petty traders, researchers and private investors are assembled around the issues of standardization and commercialization of knowledge about plants. This coincides with a nation-building project which promotes the revitalization of local knowledge within the so called African Renaissance. A social science analysis of the transformation of so called Traditional Medicine (TM) may shed light onto this renaissance by tracing social arenas in which different regimes of value are brought into conflict. When medicinal plants turn into assets in a national and global economy, they seem to be manipulated and transformed in relation to their capacity to promote health, their market value, and their potential to construct new ethics of development. In this context, the translation of socially and culturally situated local knowledge about muthi into global pharmaceuticals creates new forms of agency as well as new power differentials between the different actors involved

The Disease Burden of Taenia solium Cysticercosis in Cameroon

Taenia solium cysticercosis is a zoonotic disease occurring in many developing countries. A relatively high prevalence in humans and pigs has been reported in several parts of the world, but insufficient data are available on the disease burden. Disease impact assessment needs detailed information on well-defined epidemiological and economic parameters. Our work conducted in West Cameroon over several years allowed us to collect the necessary information to estimate the impact of the parasite on the human and animal populations in this area using both cost and Disability Adjusted Life Year (DALY) estimations. This study identified the professional inactivity caused by the disease as the major loss factor in comparison to the cost of health care and losses due to infected pigs. These findings should allow a simpler estimation of the global disease burden based on information on salary levels and human cysticercosis prevalence in endemic areas of the world. In addition, the number of DALYs lost was higher than estimates already available for some other neglected tropical diseases in sub-Saharan Africa

Where the Wild Things Are: Pathogenesis of SIV Infection in African Nonhuman Primate Hosts

African nonhuman primates that are natural hosts of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) are generally spared from disease progression. Pathogenic and nonpathogenic SIV infections share some major features: high viral replication, massive acute depletion of mucosal CD4+ T cells, and partial control of the virus by both adaptive and innate immune responses. A key distinction of natural SIV infections is rapid and active control of immune activation and apoptosis of T cells that contributes to the integrity of mucosal barrier and lack of microbial translocation. This allows partial recovery of CD4+ T cells and preservation of the function of other immune cell subsets. A better understanding of the mechanisms underlying the lack of disease in natural hosts for SIV infection will likely provide important clues as to the therapy of HIV-1 infection

Mitotic Spindle Proteomics in Chinese Hamster Ovary Cells

Mitosis is a fundamental process in the development of all organisms. The mitotic spindle guides the cell through mitosis as it mediates the segregation of chromosomes, the orientation of the cleavage furrow, and the progression of cell division. Birth defects and tissue-specific cancers often result from abnormalities in mitotic events. Here, we report a proteomic study of the mitotic spindle from Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells. Four different isolations of metaphase spindles were subjected to Multi-dimensional Protein Identification Technology (MudPIT) analysis and tandem mass spectrometry. We identified 1155 proteins and used Gene Ontology (GO) analysis to categorize proteins into cellular component groups. We then compared our data to the previously published CHO midbody proteome and identified proteins that are unique to the CHO spindle. Our data represent the first mitotic spindle proteome in CHO cells, which augments the list of mitotic spindle components from mammalian cells

Severe Preeclampsia Epidemiological, Diagnostic, Therapeutic and Prognostic Aspects at the Thies Regional Hospital Center about 443 Cases

Objectives: Are to study the epidemiological, diagnostic, therapeutic and prognostic aspects of severe pre-eclampsia in the Obstetrics Gynecology Department of the Regional Hospital of THIES. Materials and Methods: This were a prospective, descriptive and analytical study of patients received for PES at the Maternity Department of the Regional Hospital of Thies between June 20, 2015 and June 20, 2017. We studied the diagnostic, epidemiological, therapeutic and prognostic aspects. The data were entered and analyzed by the EPINFO software version 6.04dfr. In order to study the influence of certain prognostic factors, we used the comparison of proportions and the Chi-square test with a significance level of 0.05. Results: We recorded 443 cases of Severe Peclampsia (SEP) out of 15,744 pregnant women, i.e. a frequency of 2.81%. It represented 52.05% of all hypertensive states associated with pregnancy during the study and a frequency of 3.12% of deliveries. The typical epidemiological profile found was that of a young woman aged 20-24 (25.05%), married (91.19%), housewife (80.8%) from the commune of Thies (50.56 %), primiparous (52.37%), carrier of a single pregnancy (96.4%), followed in a health post (97.21%) and evacuated in 89.4% of cases. The time between admission and delivery was on average 3.85 ± 3.91 days with extremities ranging from 0 to 42 days. The main signs found were: headache (96.61%), hypertension with SBP ≥160/110mmHg (93.90%), edematous syndrome (90.29%), proteinuria on the test strip ≥ ++ (95.48%), hyper uricemia &gt;60mg/l (66.13%). Therapeutically, calcium channel blockers were the main antihypertensive agent used (99.32%). Magnesium sulfate was administered to almost all patients (97.29%). Corticosteroids were administered to 223 patients (50.23%). The blood transfusion had been done in 45 patients or 10.08%, and 05 of our patients had presented an acute renal failure requiring a transfer to Dakar for dialysis. Fetal evacuation was performed by Caesarean section in 49.88% of cases. Maternal complications were dominated by: eclampsia (24.78%), retro-placental hematoma (3.61%) and Hellp syndrome (3.61%). We recorded 18 cases of maternal death, i.e. a specific lethality of 4.06% and 69 cases of neonatal death, or a perinatal mortality rate of 4.87 per 1000 live births. On the fetal side, the main complications were fetal hypotrophy (51.46%) and prematurity (41.08%). The main factors of poor maternal prognosis were young age (20-24 years), primi gestity and primiparity. The fetal risk factors included prematurity and the low Apgar score.</jats:p

Ghosts of the coast: global extinction risk and conservation of sawfishes

1. Sawfish are arguably the world's most imperilled marine fishes. All five species are classified as highly threatened with extinction: three are Critically Endangered (smalltooth sawfish Pristis pectinata, largetooth sawfish Pristis pristis, and green sawfish Pristis zijsron); two are Endangered (narrow sawfish Anoxypristis cuspidata, and dwarf sawfish Pristis clavata).\ud \ud 2. Sawfishes are threatened primarily due to a combination of their low intrinsic rates of population increase, high catchability in fisheries, and high value. Sawfishes are among the world's largest marine fishes, and they are caught by a wide range of fishing gears owing to their tooth-studded rostra being easily entangled. Sawfish fins are some of the most valuable for shark fin soup, and their rostra have long been traded as curios. In addition, they inhabit shallow coastal waters, estuaries, and rivers of the tropics and subtropics, down to a maximum depth rarely exceeding 100 m and are associated with threatened mangrove and seagrass habitats.\ud \ud 3. Historically, sawfishes were distributed in the coastal waters of 90 countries and territories. Over the past century, their geographic distribution has been greatly diminished. For example, the smalltooth sawfish is now found in <20% of its former range. Globally, sawfishes are now entirely absent from 20 countries; 43 countries have lost at least one species.\ud \ud 4. Sawfishes are legally protected, to some degree, in 16 of the 90 range states. These safeguards encompass, on average, 81% of their Extant distribution; however, the quality and breadth of protection varies dramatically across countries and species. Smalltooth sawfish currently has the least amount of such coverage of only half (49%) of Extant distribution.\ud \ud 5. The global conservation strategy specifies actions to protect sawfish and their habitats. Such actions are urgently warranted to avoid global extinction and to restore robust populations for the benefit of coastal ecosystem function and biodiversity