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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: -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...

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  • (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...'