ABSTRACT
Malaria is an endemic disease in a true sense. It is an acute febrile disease caused due to the parasite Plasmodium. However, unlike COVID-19, it failed to raise an international concern or gain the scientific limelight. Most of the 200 million globally affected by malaria, half of them are from Africa. Four of the nations, Nigeria (25%), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (11%), Mozambique (5%), and Uganda (4%), account for half of the world's malaria burden and is the leading cause of illness and death. In 2019, an estimated 5-6 million people died of malaria - most of them are young children in sub-Saharan Africa. Many of the countries affected by malaria have the lowest economic status. In the malaria-endemic region, the most vulnerable groups are young children and pregnant women. The costs of malaria are enormous to individuals, families, communities, societies, and nations. After a struggle for three decades, the much-awaited malaria vaccine, RTS, S (brand name Mosquirix), was finally launched;but it came with its controversies and allegations. This review explored the different angles of this disease, the vaccine development, and the emerging debates.
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 pandemic caused due to SARS-CoV2 has disrupted the spectrum of health care. The wide arrays of supportive and palliative care needed for patients with ailments were grossly neglected, due to the diversion of resources and healthcare professionals in COVID management. This deficiency was further exaggerated by extended lockdown and closure of outdoor patient care services resulting in unprecedented crisis in disease management. Further, COVID-19 has been associated with increased risk of morbidity and mortality arising from associated risk factors in geriatric subjects and those with other high risk co-morbidities like hypertension, COPD, diabetes and cancer. North East Indian states and the adjoining regions seem to have suffered substantially during the COVID-19 crisis due to their pre-existing vulnerabilities and under developed health care infrastructure and logistics. This deficiency, however, seems to have been fulfilled substantially by the participation of NGO (Non-Government Organizations) and other volunteer services who has actively participated to provide basic healthcare and other life support to cancer patients in this crisis.
ABSTRACT
We postulate that similar to bacteria, adult stem cells may also exhibit an innate defense mechanism to protect their niche. Here, we provide preliminary data on stem cell based innate defense against a mouse model of coronavirus, murine hepatitis virus-1 (MHV-1) infection. In a mouse model of mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) mediated Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) dormancy, MHV-1 infection in the lung exhibited 20 fold lower viral loads than the healthy control mice, suggesting the potential enhancement of an anti-MHV-1 defense by Mtb. This defense mechanism involves the in vivo expansion and reprogramming of CD271+MSCs in the lung to an enhanced stemness phenotype. The reprogrammed MSCs facilitate the activation of stemness genes, intracellular Mtb replication, and extracellular release of Mtb. The conditioned media of the reprogrammed MSCs exhibit direct anti-viral activity in an in vitro model of MHV-1 induced toxicity to type II alveolar epithelial cells. Thus, our data suggest that reprogrammed MSCs exert a unique innate defense against MHV-1 by activating dormant Mtb. The molecular details of this anti-viral defense mechanism against coronavirus could be further studied to develop a vaccine against COVID-19.