Pages Menu
Categories Menu
KFWH Co-Founder Wins Award

KFWH Co-Founder Wins Award

We are very happy to announce that “Chagas and the Pacemaker Process,” a film of KFWH Student Board Co-Founder Emily Wharton, was selected by LMC-TV Public Access Television as the 2014 Best Single Program. KFWH has proudly supported her life-saving work in Bolivia for the past two years. Click here for more information about the project: http://on.fb.me/TUcLxm. Click here to read Kay Kobbe’s letter of appreciation to LMC-TV. Photo credit: LMC-TV Facebook Page...

Read More
New Tool to Fight Deadly Tsetse Fly

New Tool to Fight Deadly Tsetse Fly

After 10 years of effort, a team led by scientists at Yale has finally decoded the genes of the tsetse fly, a bloodsucking scourge of Africa. Click here to read full article....

Read More
Human African Trypanosomiasis in Non-Endemic Countries

Human African Trypanosomiasis in Non-Endemic Countries

Background Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) can affect travelers to sub-Saharan Africa, as well as migrants from disease endemic countries (DECs), posing diagnosis challenges to travel health services in non-disease endemic countries (non-DECs). Methods Cases reported in journals have been collected through a bibliographic research and complemented by cases reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) during the process to obtain anti-trypanosome drugs. These drugs are distributed to DECs solely by WHO. Drugs are also provided to non-DECs when an HAT case is diagnosed. However, in non-DEC pentamidine can also be purchased in the market due to its indication to treat Pneumocystis and Leishmania infections. Any request for drugs from non-DECs should be accompanied by epidemiological and clinical data on the patient. Results During the period 2000 to 2010, 94 cases of HAT were reported in 19 non-DECs. Seventy-two percent of them corresponded to the Rhodesiense form, whereas 28% corresponded to the Gambiense. Cases of Rhodesiense HAT were mainly diagnosed in tourists after short visits to DECs, usually within a...

Read More
The Atlas of Human African Trypanosomiasis:

The Atlas of Human African Trypanosomiasis:

A contribution to global mapping of neglected tropical diseases by KFWH Advisors from WHO, Dr. Jean Jannin and Dr. Pere Simarro with contributing others… Abstract Background Following World Health Assembly resolutions 50.36 in 1997 and 56.7 in 2003, the World Health Organization (WHO) committed itself to supporting human African trypanosomiasis (HAT)-endemic countries in their efforts to remove the disease as a public health problem. Mapping the distribution of HAT in time and space has a pivotal role to play if this objective is to be met. For this reason WHO launched the HAT Atlas initiative, jointly implemented with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, in the framework of the Programme Against African Trypanosomosis. Results The distribution of HAT is presented for 23 out of 25 sub-Saharan countries having reported on the status of sleeping sickness in the period 2000 – 2009. For the two remaining countries, i.e. Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, data processing is ongoing. Reports by National Sleeping Sickness Control Programmes (NSSCPs), Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Research Institutes were collated...

Read More
Tropical Diseases: The New Plague of Poverty

Tropical Diseases: The New Plague of Poverty

IN the United States, 2.8 million children are living in households with incomes of less than $2 per person per day, a benchmark more often applied to developing countries. An additional 20 million Americans live in extreme poverty. In the Gulf Coast states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, poverty rates are near 20 percent. In some of the poorer counties of Texas, where I live, rates often approach 30 percent. In these places, the Gini coefficient, a measure of inequality, ranks as high as in some sub-Saharan African countries. Continue reading this August 18, 2012, New York Times article...

Read More