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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday December 19 2018, @09:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the infectious-tale dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

New strains of hepatitis C found in Africa: Study could inform hepatitis C treatment and vaccine development worldwide

Published in the Journal Hepatology, the discovery of the new strains could inform hepatitis C treatment and vaccine development worldwide, and assist the World Health Organisation's aim of eliminating hepatitis C globally.

[...] Dr George S. Mgomella, joint first author on the paper from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and University of Cambridge, said: "In the largest study of hepatitis C in the general population in sub-Saharan Africa to date, we found a diverse range of hepatitis C virus strains circulating, and also discovered new strains that had never been seen before. Further research is needed as some antiviral drugs are effective against specific strains of hepatitis C virus and may not work as well in these populations."

Dr Emma Thomson, a senior author on the paper from Glasgow University, said: "It is important that there is a concerted effort to characterise hepatitis C strains in sub-Saharan Africa at a population level in order to assist countries to select optimal treatments for national procurement. It will also be important to inform vaccine design which would catalyse the elimination of hepatitis C by 2030."

The researchers discovered that current screening methods using antibody detection were inaccurate in Uganda and that detection of the virus itself would likely be a superior method for diagnosing the infection in high-risk populations. The researchers found that many of the strains present carry mutations in genes known to be associated with resistance to some commonly used antiviral drugs, proving that careful approaches are needed to diagnose and treat HCV effectively in Africa.

Dr Manj Sandhu, a senior author on the paper from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and University of Cambridge, said: "Our study highlights the need for more investment on people in Africa and developing parts of the world. We show there are clear differences in HCV across the world, underlining the need for understanding HCV globally. Our work will help inform public health policy and reveals that further studies and clinical trials in sub-Saharan Africa are urgently needed if the WHO is to achieve its vision of eliminating hepatitis C by 2030."


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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @10:04PM (20 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @10:04PM (#776561)

    Hepatitis C is actually more common from non-sexual activities.

    Notably blood transfusions followed by contaminated food and water due to improper santitation.

    Solve the sanitation problem and provide cost effective solutions to test blood for Hep C. and the rest becomes a minor problem.

    This isn't an issue of teh libruls free sex ruining everything. Save that for gonorrhea, chlamydia, hpv, and other diseases that ARE primarily sexually transmitted.

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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @10:11PM (15 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @10:11PM (#776564)

    Besides the fact that the solution involves basic protocols for hygiene, waste-management, and de-contamination, there is also the fact that these issues arise from a population that is way too large. That brings us back full circle to sexual restraint.

    Native westerners (i.e., white people) tend to save up their resources during good times, because they expect bad times to come. In contrast, the native peoples of Africa tend to just reproduce with utterly wild abandon. This is why a trillion dollars of aid to Africa has done nothing, and this is why South Africa is now going to shit.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @10:25PM (14 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @10:25PM (#776566)

      I saw Africa in the title and was thus thoroughly unsurprised to find the above garbage being pushed.

      The nice thing about the non-censorship of comments around here is that such racists can't bleat about censorship and are left to stand on the "value" of their ideas.

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @10:36PM (13 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @10:36PM (#776569)

        That's why there are different races.

        It's a documented fact that some populations save up resources while others explode in population during good times.

        Stop ignoring FACTS. That's why can't ever solve anything, because you dumbfucks can't bear to acknowledge reality.

        • (Score: 2, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday December 19 2018, @11:45PM (11 children)

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday December 19 2018, @11:45PM (#776599) Journal

          With the full knowledge that I am replying to a troll...

          What you are describing is a set of problems of culture, not race. The issue is in the noosphere, not the genome. As evidence, I give you the United States, which has incredible divides within the same racial demographics across geography. Are you going to tell me Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel with his 8 kids and rusted out car on cinderblocks is a different race from, for example, Jeff Bezos?

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @12:06AM (9 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @12:06AM (#776606)

            Jeff Bezos has a high IQ, but Cletus has a low IQ.

            Sub-Saharan Africa's average IQ is 66 to 73, well below the threshold for criminality and functioning democracy: 85.

            • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @12:18AM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @12:18AM (#776607)

              I think you mixed up your numbers here. 66 to 73 is the IQ range of the average Trump supporter.

              • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @12:27AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @12:27AM (#776608)

                However, the average IQ of white's in the U.S. is 100 or so, and above that in Europe.

                So, Africa is full of Cletuses. Cleti?

            • (Score: 2, Offtopic) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday December 20 2018, @03:29AM (3 children)

              by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Thursday December 20 2018, @03:29AM (#776650) Journal

              Not so long ago, almost everyone in the US not living near the coast was a bunch of utter cretins. Literally. As in "widespread iodine deficiency was causing massive, endemic intellectual debility even in cases where it didn't result in goitres the size of one's fist." Even more recently, lead pollution was a major problem in poorer areas. Fix the nutritional and environmental hazards, and improvement will be both quick and widespread. Solving the constant conflict would help too.

              You, of course, just want a "scientific" excuse for your racism, and ironically the only way you can maintain that is by ignoring the actual science.

              See, we all know what it is you want to say. You want to be able to point to science and go "niggers are inferior," and yes, you would say "nigger" instead of "black people" or what have you. Do you think we're fucking dumb? Do you think we don't know what you're all about? I will never understand how you people come to think you're the smartest ones in the room...

              --
              I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
              • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:14AM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:14AM (#776671)

                Unfortunately, decades of putting your point to practice has revealed that the average IQ of a population cannot be raised that much beyond a certain threshold (neglecting the Flynn effect*), and that IQ does indeed appear to be controlled by particular genes.

                This is well documented in the literature on intelligence, which is a well established field of inquiry, whose experts do not find it even slightly controversial. Here; peruse this journal:

                https://www.journals.elsevier.com/intelligence/ [elsevier.com]

                This is also why the Chinese government has been pouring resources into genetic analysis and the editing of human genomes.

                Do you want to solve problems or not?

                If you do, then you must stop assuming that everyone is a cousin-fucking white supremacist (though Muslims are cousin fuckers, which has been put forward as part of the explanation for their flagging IQs). Besides, South East Asians (Chinesey types) have the highest average IQ.

                * A study published in the year 2009 found that British children's average scores rose by 14 IQ points from 1942 to 2008; similar gains have been observed in many other countries in which IQ testing has long been widely used, including other Western European countries, Japan, and South Korea. However, research suggests that there is an ongoing reversed Flynn effect, i.e. a decline in IQ scores, in Norway, Denmark, Australia, Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, France and German-speaking countries, a development which appears to have started in the 1990s. (See Wikipedia for references)

                I wonder what started in the 1990s...

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 24 2018, @09:01AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 24 2018, @09:01AM (#778052)

                  Since IQ is pseudoscience to begin with, I'm not sure why any of this matters.

              • (Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @06:03PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @06:03PM (#776881)

                Unfortunately, decades of putting your point to practice has revealed that the average IQ of a population cannot be raised that much beyond a certain threshold (neglecting the Flynn effect*), and that IQ does indeed appear to be controlled by particular genes.

                This is well documented in the literature on intelligence, which is a well established field of inquiry, whose experts do not find it even slightly controversial. Here; peruse this journal:

                https://www.journals.elsevier.com/intelligence/ [elsevier.com]

                This is also why the Chinese government has been pouring resources into genetic analysis and the editing of human genomes.

                Do you want to solve problems or not?

                If you do, then you must stop assuming that everyone is a cousin-fucking white supremacist (though Muslims are cousin fuckers, which has been put forward as part of the explanation for their flagging IQs). Besides, South East Asians (Chinesey types) have the highest average IQ.

                * A study published in the year 2009 found that British children's average scores rose by 14 IQ points from 1942 to 2008; similar gains have been observed in many other countries in which IQ testing has long been widely used, including other Western European countries, Japan, and South Korea. However, research suggests that there is an ongoing reversed Flynn effect, i.e. a decline in IQ scores, in Norway, Denmark, Australia, Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, France and German-speaking countries, a development which appears to have started in the 1990s. (See Wikipedia for references)

                I wonder what started in the 1990s...

            • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @08:09AM (2 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @08:09AM (#776731)

              Jeff Bezos has a high IQ, but Cletus has a low IQ.

              Sub-Saharan Africa's average IQ is 66 to 73, ..

              Meh,
              take one Jeff Bezos, plonk him into Sub-Saharan Africa with exactly the same resources as the indigenous population, get back to me if he survives (let alone prospers), ditto wrt your Cletus, though they might stand a slightly better chance of surviving

              ..well below the threshold for criminality and functioning democracy: 85.

              Eh?, WTF?
              Firstly, criminality...

              Criminality has feck all to do with low IQ, in my experience (once you filter out just plain thuggery) for criminals to actually succeed they have to be slightly more intelligent than the people they're exploiting.
              Are there 'knuckle-dragging' thugs amongst the criminal classes? Why yes!, but guess what? democratic states also employ 'knuckle-draggers'

              Secondly, 'functioning democracy'

              Sorry, I've had a look, interesting concept though...a rather elegant way for a small group of intelligent criminal types to steal the resources of a larger group of people by fooling that larger group into actually giving them full control of these resources by choice whilst maintaining the illusion that the larger group are still in control..can't find one of them *anywhere* on this dirtball, heh.

              Humans are not by nature 'democratic' and depending on the situation 'democracy' is not always the best model of control for a group of humans, and even when it is 'sort-of' implemented, it's usually just a veneer. If you want examples, look at how the Military and Police of 'democratic' nations are structured [hint:No internal democracy allowed by design], populated [hints: Rigid Indoctrination, and remember the above comment about state employed knuckle-draggers?], controlled [hint: 'executive' orders] and then wielded when the veneer cracks and the glamour of democracy stops working.

              If you want to be blunt about it, your 'functioning democracy' can only work where the majority of the 'democratic' population are of such a low IQ they cant see through the flammery of the crooks running it, of course, it helps to tell the populace 'how smart they are', Emperor's New Clothes and all that...

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @02:32PM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @02:32PM (#776796)

                People have done statistical analyses to come up with these numbers.

                Your gut feeling ain't worth shit.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @06:01PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @06:01PM (#776879)

                  People have done statistical analyses to come up with these numbers.

                  Your gut feeling ain't worth shit.

                  Statistical analyses [wikipedia.org] eh? I think I'll stick with empirical evidence over numerical bullshittery...'come up with these numbers' indeed! (Freudian slip there...)
                  Doing a quick delve into the mire that is the somewhat contentious study of Race & IQ, I see lots of 'hypothesis', 'suggesting', f.tons of 'he/she/they were wrong, we're right' etc, etc, In other words, more or less what I expect from BS merchants....and, as the saying goes, 'it takes one to know one...'

          • (Score: 1) by NPC-131072 on Thursday December 20 2018, @12:33AM

            by NPC-131072 (7144) on Thursday December 20 2018, @12:33AM (#776610) Journal

            What you are describing is a set of problems of culture, not race.

            You're not suggesting there's something wrong with black culture? [hepvu.org]

        • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @12:06AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @12:06AM (#776605)

          The troll got trolled by other trolls and is now a non-trolling troll because it actually believes what the other trolls trolled him with.

  • (Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @10:54PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @10:54PM (#776572)

    Uncontaminated food and proper sanitation are anathema to the conservative republican project.

    • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @11:10PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @11:10PM (#776579)

      It's been noted that people who are conservative have also display a strong sense of disgust for "unclean" things. This is well documented, and also explains the nature of the more rigid orthodox religions, which emphasize ritual cleanliness.

      So, sorry, but your insult just doesn't work.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @11:35PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @11:35PM (#776591)

        You mis-understand, they make sure THEIR food is uncontaminated and THEIR neighborhood is clean...

        • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @12:47AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @12:47AM (#776614)

          They sound like winners to me.

          Others should emulate them.