New Blog + Cure for Malaria Found?

Thanks to the pestering of my good friend Malia, I have decided to start a blog about African events. As many Americans couldn't point to Mauritania on a map and don't know anything about the presidential race in Angola, I'm going to post one short item on Africa every day for that audience. Read daily or weekly, and you will have a decent idea of what is going on on this beautiful and inspiring continent. Enjoy!

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Researchers at the University of Cape Town in South Africa believe they might have found the "holy grail" of malaria cures. Although South Africa is not known for a prevalence of malaria, the mosquito-borne disease kills a million people a year elsewhere on the continent, especially in the more tropical equatorial regions. This cure, if proven in human trials, could transform the African economy and way of life. And as anyone going on a safari to Kenya or a trip to West Africa knows, malaria pills are no fun (many cause sun sensitivity, yeast infections, or scary "fire dreams"), so this cure could truly change the face of African tourism, for the better.

Side bar: Los Angeles EMT courses do not discuss how to treat malaria, so when a student came to school with a bad case my first year here... well, I learned fast.

A bit about the curing compound from the Chemistry teacher at my school: MMV390048 drug is a derivative of aminopyridine. Pyridine itself, found in smoke from charcoal fire, has been contested as a possible carcinogen and has been found to significantly reduce sperm mobility in mice at all levels of exposure, though not a threat to men at this stage. Just another example of the wonders of the "double-edged" nature of many chemical substances.

For more info: http://www.iol.co.za/scitech/science/news/the-holy-grail-of-malaria-cures-1.1371631

Random Kate Thought: Remember how Europeans killed off the Native Americans with their many diseases, most famously small pox? Ever think about why that didn't happen in Africa? Malaria is a big reason why the exchange of disease went the other way in the colonization of Africa. Why are Native Americans a minority in America and Africans a majority in Africa? Both native cultures (vastly overgeneralizing here) put up a fight when the whites came, but malaria stayed in the ring for Africa. Read "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond for more.