Our website use cookies to improve and personalize your experience and to display advertisements (if any). Our website may also include cookies from third parties like Google Adsense, Google Analytics, and Youtube. By using the website, you consent to the use of cookies.

Patients’ beliefs about illness matter: the case of elephantiasis in rural Ghana

Patients’ beliefs about illness matter: the case of elephantiasis in rural Ghana

WOULD you take medication for an illness you didn’t believe you had? Or if you disagreed with healthcare workers about the cause of your condition? This is the dilemma of many people who live in areas of Ghana where a mosquito-borne disease called lymphatic filariasis, often referred to as elephantiasis, continues to spread. Lymphatic filariasis, or LF as it is commonly known, is a neglected tropical disease which spreads through repeated bites by parasite-carrying mosquitoes. This infection results in the painful and debilitating swelling of legs, arms and genitals, and increases vulnerability to injury and secondary infections. Although little known,…
Read More
New malaria vaccine shows promise

New malaria vaccine shows promise

KATE KELLAND A potential new malaria vaccine has proved highly effective in a trial in babies in Africa, pointing to it one day possibly helping reduce the death toll from the mosquito-borne disease that kills up to half a million young children a year. The candidate vaccine, developed by scientists at Britain's University of Oxford and called R21/Matrix-M, showed up to 77% efficacy in the year-long trial of 450 children in Burkina Faso, researchers leading the trial said in a statement. The scientists, led by Adrian Hill, director of Oxford's Jenner Institute and also one of the lead researchers behind…
Read More