From: Nowa Omoigui <nowa_o@yahoo.com>
Date: 15 March 2011 20:13
Subject: [dandalin-siyasa] Danger alert! Mad Cow disease in Nigeria
To: defsec@egroups.com
Danger alert! Researchers discover world's most infectious disease in Nigeria
By SAM OTTI
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Sun News Publishing
A senior fellow of the National Institute of Health in the United States, Henry Onwubiko, has warned of ominous signs of the world's most infectious disease in the country. He said studies conducted by post-graduate students of the University of Nigeria Nsukka , gave startling indications of a deadly pandemic known as Prion disease or Mad Cow disease in the localities.
Onwubiko, a lecturer in the Department of Biochemistry, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, worked with Dr Bryan Caughey, the head of the American laboratories for control of infectious diseases and other scientists to discover the ultra-sensitive detection of Prion disease at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories, Hamilton , Montana , USA . The discovery, which was published in reputable international journal, Nature Method and on the Internet, was hailed as a major breakthrough in the global war against killer diseases.
Making a case for caution in a public lecture organised recently by the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lagos, Onwubiko, who was the guest lecturer, drew attention to the disease, describing it as more deadly than HIV/AIDS. He said the disease could sweep through the country with hurricane speed, unless practical steps are taken to stem the tide. To make the situation more worrisome, he said the high infectivity of the disease also makes it a global threat, as it has the virulent capacity to wipe out humanity within a very short period.
The lecturer, who has spent over 20 years in scientific research, warned that unless the government takes urgent proactive steps, Prion disease has the capacity to replicate in humans nationwide, destroy herds of animals and set off alarming death toll in the country.
"It is worse than HIV/AIDS in terms of its capacity. It infects animals-goats, sheep, cows, deer, elk, rodents and man. In man, there are variant forms of the disease which you can contact from cattle. So, you can see the degrees of infection. It is not like HIV, which has only blood contact as its modality of infection. But here, it is a disease where you can get infected by breathing the air from an infected animal. It is quite dangerous and very serious," he said.
Onwubiko described the pandemic as a neuro-degenerating disease, which in scientific term is also referred to as 'Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies'. He said the disease is highly transmissible through contaminated air, eating infected animals, no matter the hours of boiling or even physical contact with infected host. It can also be gotten through use of contaminated surgical equipment at the hospitals, even when such tools have been sterilised for hours, he said.
While tracing the history of the disease, the lecturer noted that even though the new method of diagnosis of the disease is relatively new, the infection has a long history, spanning many decades. According to him, modernity has only increased its virulence, rather than contain its malady.
"Just like HIV, it is now rampant and getting at people in various places. I have been interested in protein folding diseases. I worked with sickle cell anaemia which is also a protein folding disease, in terms of haemoglobin that folds and has abnormal reactions in the victims. It is a similar kind of disease but the difference is that the sickle haemoglobin is not infectious but it polymerises. But Prion disease, the new neuro-degenerating diseases are infectious and now, that is new. We are now witnessing a situation where we have protein that is not a living thing, yet it infects. It is not fungi, bacteria or other standard infectious micro-organisms we are used to", he added.
Onwubiko told Daily Sun that the entire humanity is at the mercy of the killer disease because it is not like other viral or bacterial infections that has defined mode of transmission. Above all, the immune system in the body does not fight the disease because the infected protein particles are produced within the body system.
"We are now witnessing a situation where we have protein that is not a living thing, yet it infects. It is not fungi, bacteria or other standard infectious micro-organisms we are used to. What we regard as infection in the past is usually the bacteria, whereby the micro organisms enter the body and undergo nucleic acid replication, DNA replication and then, new micro organisms will be made in the body that would subsequently destroy the individual. But now, we have a non-living particle, a protein that does not undergo such DNA replication. It simply touches other particles in the body and infects them rapidly. How can a non-living particle cause infection and be transmissible? Another point is that the protein is not a foreign body since it is produced by the body itself. So, you cannot turn the body's immunity against it. That means that we have very serious problems on our hands. The world has entered a paradigm shift, in terms of definition of
infections. Those who are in the frontiers of science would naturally want to hop into the bandwagon to know why", he said.
He said the discovery of the disease in cattle in Britain forced the government to destroy over five million cattle, while America and other developed countries also recorded monumental loss of their farm animals in order to checkmate the spread of the disease. He said the failure of the Nigerian government to conduct even a nationwide screening tests for both the people and farm animals to determine the degree of risk or possible infections, portrayed sheer unwillingness or indifference to this global threat."
"After seeing over 5000 citations and references on the internet and an international journal like Nature Method, and seeing what happened in Britain where five million cattle were destroyed by the British government and also in the United States where large herds of animals were also destroyed because of the same infection, it is the responsibility of a responsible government to look through these materials and make necessary consultations. I believe the government is aware that a Nigerian was in the team that discovered the ultra-sensitive means of diagnosing the disease. But surprisingly, the government has not made any effort, or even ask whether I am still in the country", he noted.
Above all, Onwubiko argued that some influential personalities would rather watch people die than surrender their infected herds of cattle for destruction. He said these wealthy farmers could go at length to frustrate nationwide screening test for the disease.
"But for cattle, there is great risk of infection. It is here that we will have serious political problem because there are some wealthy men that own cattle in the Senate and the House of Reps and they wouldn't be very happy if the disease is found in their cattle and they are asked to destroy thousands of cattle as it was done in England. Would these politicians who own these businesses in Nigeria be willing to support such a test? I doubt it. So, there has been no screening of cattle in Nigeria since the infection broke out in other parts of the world. Since I am the pioneer scientist in the country for the Prion disease, I think I will know when such screening exercise of people or cattle is conducted," he argued.
Notwithstanding the incurable nature of the disease, Onwubiko raised hopes when he said early detection of the disease, using ultra-sensitive means, could help in curtailing its virulence.
"In humans, you can begin to attempt surgical removal of the affected part or maybe trying to treat it with some drugs to prevent the spread of the disease. It is incurable for now. You can reduce the scourge based on this new test which we discovered. You can detect it on time and begin to treat it with inhibitors that can slow down the speed which the disease is spreading. That is one of the advantages of the research," he said.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
No comments:
Post a Comment