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- AUSSIE'S MALARIA TRIUMPH
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- by THE C.P.U.
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- A team of young Australian scientists has made a world break-through
- in the desperate struggle against a disease that kills more than 1.5
- million people a year.
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- Headed by Dr Allan Saul, the 35 member Queensland Institute of Medical
- Research team has discovered a number of ingredients of the deadly
- malaria parasite that will form the basis of a vaccine to be tested on
- humans for the first time early next year in Switzerland.
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- Malaria infects more than 500 million people worldwide, and about half
- the earth's population is at risk. Usually passed to humans by
- mosquitos in tropical areas and the Mediterranean, malaria can also be
- transmitted between drug addicts using infected hypodermic needles.
-
- It is a relapsing disease with periods of chills one day, fever the
- next and often with fatal complications. And the bad news for
- Australia is, it's returning here. The World Health Organisation
- declared Australia malaria free after World War II. Now the disease
- has returned with a vengeance through people entering Australia via
- the Torres Strait islands from Papua New Guinea, and others returning
- from overseas.
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- Last year, 560 cases of malaria were notified in Queensland alone. Dr
- Saul, who spent 10 years in a humidified laboratory surrounded by
- thousands of the anopheles mosquitos that transmit malaria, told of
- the fist vaccine in general use could still be four years down the
- track.
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- The first vaccine we come up with won't necessarily be the final one
- he said. This is partly because the parasite is such a complex
- organism and it will take many refinements to reach the ultimate
- weapon. Besides, there's a need for different malaria vaccines. One
- may be suitable for people in Australia who might be travelling to a
- malarial area but that could be useless to people who live in those
- areas continuously.
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- Shit there's a mossie in my room, arrrrrr it's gotttttttt meeeeeee...
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