CABI Blogs: hand picked... and carefully sorted

Theft! A new threat to glaciers

Argentina passed a law back in September 2010 aiming at preserving their glaciers on the grounds that they are important as: "strategic hydrological resource for human consumption; for agricultural use; to recharge hydrographic basins; to protect biodiversity; a scientific information source; and a touristic attraction.” The law imposed a requirement for a prior evaluation of any planned allowed activities. This is quite an important law, when considering the latest threat to glaciers – theft! A news article from the UN News Centre reported recently that criminal gangs might have become a more immediate threat to glaciers than climate change.

Tuberculosis treatment- end of an era?

The 1940s saw the beginning of the era of effective drug therapy for TB with the discovery of streptomycin. At the beginning of the 21^st century we are seeing its end. Last month doctors in India reported an outbreak of a strain of TB that was termed totally drug resistant. It could be a false alarm because as it turns out the strains were not tested against all known drugs for TB but they were resistant to all 12 of the most common first and second line drugs.

Unfortunately India wasn’t the first place to report totally drug resistance such strains were reported in Italy in 2007 and Iran in 2009. Its presence in India is a concern, say experts because of the large poor population living in crowded conditions and government funded treatment of only simple TB cases.

TB develops drug resistance readily, probably aided by the long treatment times needed. Drug resistant strains followed very soon after the development of the first anti TB drugs and multiple drug resistant (MDR) forms heralded the resurgence of TB globally in the 1980s.

In response the World Health Organization developed the DOTS strategy, where adherence to the drug regime is ensured by observing the patient each time they take a drug dose. But despite this half a million cases of MDR TB occur each year because of poor adherence, poor quality drugs or erratic supply of drugs.

In 2006 the next step on the slippery slope to an incurable TB was the appearance of extremely drug resistant TB in an outbreak in South Africa. This was resistant to first and some secondline drugs.

This increasing drug resistance puts recent progress in decreasing the number of worldwide TB cases in jeopardy.

What can be done? Early diagnosis and testing and a better vaccine would go a long way to getting cases early and giving the right drugs. Treating early and accurately will stop the spread of TB.

TB diagnosis is antiquated - requiring use of microscopy in low resource settings. Matters are complicated by unreliable blood tests on the market which are attractive, quick to do and cheap. WHO issued a warning about those last year.

Progress is being made towards a rapid test. The Xpert MTB/RIF assay is a real-time PCR assay that is fully automated, and that has demonstrated high performance and could be deployed in a range of low- and middle-income settings. The World Health Organization (WHO) has publicly backed it.

World TB day is on 24^th March 2012. Join the campaign against this disease of poverty here.

CABI is publishing a book about tuberculosis this year: Tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment.

See Global Health Knowledge Base for access to Global Health abstracts on tuberculosis

Photo credit: Janice Haney Carr

Come on in, the water’s lovely……

Among the full text records recently loaded to Environmental Impact is one which examined the water quality of spa waters at Polish health resorts.

Specifically the paper [1] examined the composition of the healing waters. Iron seems to be an important component present in 37 of 160 waters tested from 39 health resorts. Fluoride is also another important constituent of spa waters with 12 waters tested containing more than 2 mg/dm³. Some 28 of the waters contained sulphides in concentrations of >1 mg/dm³ while 64 waters contained iodide in similar concentrations. Even more alarming is the fact that waters which contain radon in an amount corresponding to the radiation of 74 Bq (2 nCi) in 1 dm³ are classified as radon waters. Ten of the analysed waters were found to contain this element.

A search of the database using the descriptor health resorts gave an interesting mix of papers which examined the bacteriological quality of the spa waters, health problems caused by using spa waters (hot tub lung) and tourism impacts of spa resorts. One paper [2] reported the death of a previously healthy 49-year-old woman from pneumonia came after she visited a wellness hotel for a spa holiday. Water samples contained bacteria that matched samples taken from the patient and revealed severe deficiencies in hygiene maintenance of the hot tubs at the hotel.

The presence of radon in Polish spa waters is not unique and a Hungarian study [3] examined uranium concentrations in spring, therapeutic and tap waters. The authors found that spring waters contained the highest concentrations of uranium while the lowest were found in tap waters. The calculated doses for the analysed samples of spring water are in the range 0.07-32.39 µSv/year with an average 4.32 µSv/year. This is well below the 100 µSv/year reference level of the committed effective dose recommended by WHO and the EU Council.

Traditionally, geothermally heated therapeutic spa waters widespread across Europe are not disinfected. This has led to sporadic outbreaks of legionellosis. The effectiveness of disinfection using UV and hyperchlorination was examined by Portuguese researchers [4]. They found that using UV light was an effective disinfection method and had the advantage of not affecting the physicochemical composition of the spa waters.

So a trip to the spa may not necessarily be the healthiest of options after all.

 

[1] The elements of specific biological activity in therapeutic waters in Polish health resorts. Drobnik, M.; Latour, T.; Sziwa, D.; Journal of Elementology, 2011, 16, 4, pp 525-533, 21 ref.

[2] Fatal Pseudomonas aeruginosa pneumonia in a previously healthy woman was most likely associated with a contaminated hot tub. Huhulescu, S.; Simon, M.; Lubnow, M.; Kaase, M.; Wewalka, G.; Pietzka, A. T.; Stöger, A.; Ruppitsch, W.; Allerberger, F.; Infection, 2011, 39, 3, pp 265-269, 20 ref.

[3] Radioanalytical investigations of uranium concentrations in natural spring, mineral, spa and drinking waters in Hungary. Jobbágy, V.; Kávási, N.; Somlai, J.; Dombovári, P.; Richárd Kardos, K. T.; Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, 2010, 286, 2, pp 417-422, 25 ref.

[4] Colonization of a therapeutic spa with Legionella spp: a public health issue. Costa, J.; Costa, M. S. da; Veríssimo, A.; Research in Microbiology, 2010, 161, 1, pp 18-25, 37 ref.

Phosphorus – essential nutrient, pollutant and limited resource

The world's phosphorus (P) reserves are almost peaking! Yet excess P is polluting our water resources! What is going on with the phosphorus cycle and what can be done about it?

And now for the world's most important plant viruses

Other than possibly the newly discovered leaping beetles of New Caledonia with a mysterious plant diet, few if any plant pests or diseases make it onto any one of the Time Top of Everything of 2011 lists.

But pests and diseases are busy making their way into their own ‘Top 10’. CABI scientists put together a list in 2011 of some of the world’s worst plant pests, and plant viruses and fungal pathogens are also getting together.

Molecular Plant Pathology has published the results of a survey amongst plant virologists, ranking plant viruses based on scientific/economic importance. The historical perspective, the science, the economics and the latest research are discussed for each of the viruses making it into the ‘Top 10’.

First place is given to Tobacco mosaic virus for its scientific importance based on its role which has extended beyond practical plant pathology (as a virus causing serious losses in a profitable crop) to its use as a model system and in molecular pathology. TMV (just to corroborate its importance) is also the highest ranking plant virus on CAB Abstracts. The database has more than 8000 records specifically on TMV since 1909 (just over 10% of all the records on plant viruses on the database), and is still going strong with about 100 records added each year.

‘Top 10 plant viruses in molecular plant pathology’ is free to download here. Now watch out for the ‘Top 10 fungal pathogens in molecular plant pathology’…coming soon…

High-speed rail: when should governments invest?

 Recent years have seen a surge in investment in high-speed rail (HSR) infrastructure in many parts of the world, led by China where over $100 billion a year is being spent (although there was a slowdown in construction after a fatal crash in July 2011). The UK has so far lagged behind, but today the government looks set to approve plans for a high-speed rail link between London and Birmingham as the first stage of a planned network which will eventually extend to northern cities. With the mainstream media covering the debate in more detail than can be dealt with here, this blog instead features a recent Working Paper by de Rus which examines the economic rationale for government investment in the construction of HSR lines, before looking at the arguments in Britain in the context of this analysis.

Apps For Climate competition with World Bank cash prizes

 

 

 

 

 

Climate change is undeniably happening and it is expected to hit poorer and developing countries the hardest. It is well known now that its effects, such as higher temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns, rising sea levels and more frequent weather-related disasters pose risks for agriculture, food and water supplies. All organizations, large and small, are getting involved on the fight to stop climate change through mitigation and adaptation. Read on to see details of an Apps for Climate Competition, launched by the World Bank, that aims to bring together the best ideas from scientists, application developers, civil society organizations and development practitioners to develop innovative apps using World Bank data.

The environment in 2011 – the main extreme events!

Being one of the editors for the Cabi resource Environmental Impact and as 2011 comes to a close; I thought I should close the working year with a blog on what happened around the world with regard to environment. One thing that comes straight to mind is that 2011 saw a record rise in greenhouse gas emissions, but what else happened in 2011?

COP17 the results – A step closer towards a legally-binding climate deal!

The high-level highly publicised UN climate change talks ended yesterday in Durban, South Africa. Most governmental and non-governmental organisations accept that climate change is inevitable and that we have to do something about it, i.e. have mitigation and adaptation measures in place. If the world ignore the changes and carry on with a business as usual approach, the consequences could be catastrophic. Many regions of the world have already been experience climatic change, which has resulted in high human and economic costs. It is therefore in everybody’s interest to do something about it, hence the UN conference. The last two conferences in Copenhagen and Cancun resulted in non-legal-binding agreements and there was a lot of pressure from all corners for leaders to work harder at reaching a legally-binding deal in Durban. According to reports from various media, a deal was finally agreed in Durban to push for a new climate treaty, but is it a big deal?

No strings attached: public health messages from puppets!

Image:Loren Javier           Father Christmas & wife puppets         Happy Christmas!
                                                                                       

One intriguing way of getting health messages across to communities who are illiterate and whose spoken language may not even have words to describe the medical concept, is to entertain them. Travelling theatre groups  in Africa sing or act out AIDs prevention stories, board games educate children on climate or help mothers cope with domestic violence, and, not to be left out, there is now an online game that can support the fight against hunger (see UN food aid agency helps create online game to fight hunger)

Another way is storytelling with puppets and I am going to tell you about the work of one particular company No Strings.