Forum for Science, Industry and Business

Lymphatic Filariasis Causes Devastating Social and Economic Losses

These were the findings of a new study by Myrtle Perera (Marga Institute, Sri Lanka), David Molyneux (Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK) and colleagues in the recently launched open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Lymphatic filariasis (LF) is a tropical parasitic disease transmitted by mosquitoes that causes extreme swelling of the limbs and male genitals. Despite recent successes in preventing the transmission of LF, say the authors, some 40 million people worldwide who already have the disease have been largely neglected by public health policy makers.

If effective disease control interventions are to be successfully implemented, the researchers propose, the full extent of the disability must be understood. In order to inform future interventions and policy measures, the study sought a greater understanding of the consequences of the disease for individuals and their families, the barriers they face to accessing care, and their coping strategies.

The researchers conducted in-depth interviews with 60 people with LF in southern Sri Lanka. The participants described how the social isolation from stigma caused emotional distress and delayed diagnosis and treatment. Free treatment services at government clinics were avoided because the participants’ condition would be identifiable in public.

One participant said: “I am mentally broken down and do not know how long I can live like this, shunned and rejected and confined to this house.”

While many aspects of the disease such as risk of infection and access to treatment facilities varied according to economic status, loss of income due to the condition was reported by all households in the sample, across all income levels. Households that were already relying on low incomes before infection were pushed into near destitution.

The authors call for an expansion of LF control programs beyond measures to break the transmission of disease. “Even if the LF elimination program is successful in arresting transmission of the disease so that there are no new cases,” they say, “hundreds of thousands of people in Sri Lanka will continue to suffer clinical manifestations of the disease and will remain trapped in poverty. The affected households will need help and support for many years despite transmission having been arrested.”

CITATION: Perera M, Whitehead M, Molyneux D, Weerasooriya M, Gunatilleke G (2007) Neglected Patients with a Neglected Disease? A Qualitative Study of Lymphatic Filariasis. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 1(2): e128. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0000128

Andrew Hyde | alfa
Further information:
http://www.plos.org
http://ntds.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pntd.0000128

Im Focus: Spider silk key to new bone-fixing composite

University of Connecticut researchers have created a biodegradable composite made of silk fibers that can be used to repair broken load-bearing bones without the complications sometimes presented by other materials.

Repairing major load-bearing bones such as those in the leg can be a long and uncomfortable process.

Im Focus: Writing and deleting magnets with lasers

Study published in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces is the outcome of an international effort that included teams from Dresden and Berlin in Germany, and the US.

Scientists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) together with colleagues from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and the University of Virginia...

Im Focus: Gamma-ray flashes from plasma filaments

Novel highly efficient and brilliant gamma-ray source: Based on model calculations, physicists of the Max PIanck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg propose a novel method for an efficient high-brilliance gamma-ray source. A giant collimated gamma-ray pulse is generated from the interaction of a dense ultra-relativistic electron beam with a thin solid conductor. Energetic gamma-rays are copiously produced as the electron beam splits into filaments while propagating across the conductor. The resulting gamma-ray energy and flux enable novel experiments in nuclear and fundamental physics.

The typical wavelength of light interacting with an object of the microcosm scales with the size of this object. For atoms, this ranges from visible light to...

Im Focus: Basel researchers succeed in cultivating cartilage from stem cells

Stable joint cartilage can be produced from adult stem cells originating from bone marrow. This is made possible by inducing specific molecular processes occurring during embryonic cartilage formation, as researchers from the University and University Hospital of Basel report in the scientific journal PNAS.

Certain mesenchymal stem/stromal cells from the bone marrow of adults are considered extremely promising for skeletal tissue regeneration. These adult stem...

Im Focus: Like a wedge in a hinge

Researchers lay groundwork to tailor drugs for new targets in cancer therapy

In the fight against cancer, scientists are developing new drugs to hit tumor cells at so far unused weak points. Such a “sore spot” is the protein complex...