💉 UNICEF brings down malaria care costs; Chemicals make eating a chore; Nature takes on plastic
#585 | Africa CDC introduces AGARI; Beaches go bye-bye; Cities sink and drown
Hello, and welcome back to The Kable one last time this month. As always, we have some disease news, some multilateral updates, a whole lot of gloom, and precious little to cheer.
But we can cheer the fact that, even in the absence of the US, South Africa managed to pull off a G20 declaration that was adopted by all but the absentee. While in itself, this Joburg declaration may not tilt the needle much when it comes to anything around the world, the very fact that South Africa pulled this off in the face of a bullying bully in itself is commendable and might herald a new way forward for the world, free of imperialist colonising shackles.
In more multilateral news, the Global Fund secured over $11 billion in its latest replenishment effort, with a surprising $4+ billion contribution from the US.
Another week, another acronym from the Africa CDC. This week, it is AGARI (the Africa Genome Archiving for Response and Insight) which will purportedly be a genomic data platform that will help boost pan-continent responses to any disease outbreaks.
Speaking of outbreaks, the death toll in Ethiopia’s first-ever Marburg outbreak has doubled to 6. And Namibia is reporting an outbreak of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever. In South Africa, an outbreak of Rift Valley Fever is what is up.
Okay, there are some dark clouds where one should not be seeking silver linings. Nevertheless, with the flu continuing to ravage Japan, at least one hospital is reinstating strict masking protocols. Honestly, how medical- and medical-adjacent professionals around the world completely eschewed masking in the wake of a devastating airborne pandemic will continue to always baffle us, at least.
Elsewhere, a “mysterious” high fever in China is sending kids to hospitals and graves. And in South Korea, pigs are getting swine flu by the half-dozens. In Mongolia, flu is rampant across the country, with kids being primarily affected. And, in the US, a human person has been infected with a flu virus - A(H1N2)v - that normally only affects pigs. Funnily, this infection is in a person who’s had no exposure to pigs or pig farms or barns. Make of that what you will but we’re fairly certain this particular person is a pig.
Amid all this, bird flu continues to make waves everywhere. Scientists in Peru say vampire bats may have caught bird flu too amid PAHO’s warning that bird flu is still rampant in the Americas. In a reminder that the flu never stops evolving comes this study that says a new H5N2 avian influenza virus has arrived - a reassortant of H5N1 and H5N2. Scientists say that if a bird flu mutated into a human pandemic, it will be way worse than Covid, especially with another study claiming bird flu is resistant to fever heat as well.
And finally, great news on the evolutionary front with a new study showing that you are adolescent till you’re into your 30s. Which naturally means 60 is the new 30.
Stories Of The Week
The malaria jab gets a price cut. UNICEF and Gavi have struck a new deal with India’s Serum Institute to widen affordable access to the R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine, cutting future procurement by about 25% within a year. The pact fixes the price at $2.99 per dose, positioned to save up to $90m for Gavi-backed immunisation programmes and high-burden countries. That is more than 30 million additional doses. Those doses matter across 24 African nations that shoulder over 70 percent of the world’s malaria burden, where a full four-dose course now totals $11.96 in settings where even a mild case can cost upto $7 to treat as an outpatient, and severe care can exceed $70 per hospital stay. The timing is telling: international aid budgets are tightening, donor priorities are drifting, and it is supply economics that will determine whether Gavi’s 2030 ambition to vaccinate 50m more children stays bankrolled or becomes a maths problem.
(UNICEF)
Chemicals, chemicals everywhere, quite a lot to drink. A Cambridge-led lab screening of 1,076 common chemical contaminants against 22 key human gut bacterial species has flagged 168 compounds that actively knock back beneficial microbes. Most weren’t previously on anyone’s suspect list, yet they suppressed growth in bacterial strains tied to digestion, metabolism and immunity. And as gut bacteria battle chemical stress, some also gained resistance to the antibiotic ciprofloxacin, a frontline treatment for infections. The real-world dose reaching the gut isn’t yet clear, but in regions where food-system pesticide exposure is high and access to newer antibiotics can be low or patchy, disrupted microbiomes and harder-to-treat infections are a very practical double hit.
(Nature Microbiology)
Breakthroughs
Nature is healing. Because we sure aren’t doing anything about it. Plastic-munching enzymes weren’t supposed to show up in nature, least of all at scale, yet here we are. Researchers screened 400 ocean samples and found functional M5-tagged PETase enzymes in nearly 80% of them, including at depths of 2km. These microbes may not be saving the planet, but they sure are surviving it: in carbon-poor waters, a slow enzymatic nibble on PET is better than starvation. The real prize is the M5 motif itself, a dependable biological litmus test that finally separates active plastic-degraders from the vast crowd of enzymatic wannabes. Hopefully, this can translate to faster engineering cycles for land-based recycling and wastewater systems that genuinely need workable options, not just good vibes.
(The ISME Journal)
Bottom line
Love the beach life, do you? FAPESP, one of Latin America’s leading research funding agencies recently organised a symposium in Uruguay. One of the presentations at the symposium in Latin America was about how, if you love the beach life, you won’t love life for much longer. Because the beaches... they’re disappearing. Nearly half the world’s beaches could vanish by century’s end as rising seas collide with coastal build-out, starving the dune-to-surf sand-exchange loop that normally protects shorelines. Researchers mapped biodiversity across 90 sites on 30 São Paulo beaches, showing that footfall, buildings on sand and mechanical cleaning don’t only maul dry zones, they degrade life all the way into the submerged foreshore, nudging hardy, opportunistic species to dominate while richer ecosystems retreat. A separate 315-beach global survey found one-fifth already in severe to extreme erosion, especially reflective and intermediate beach types common to the South Atlantic margins. So yeah, get that sunscreen and swimsuit and day out at the beach while you still can.
(FAPESP)
Long reads
An epidemic resurgent. Ordinarily, we would’ve covered this in Top stories but we don’t have content moderators at The Kable and we’ve read more than enough trauma this month. So, here, CHAI with the state of the HIV market around the world. Funding cuts mean an HIV boom.
(CHAI)
A bright array of city lights as far as I can see. The UN released a report called the World Urbanization Prospects 2025. A reminder, if one were needed, about how everybody is moving to cities around the world. The last time this report was released, in 2018, Indonesian capital Jakarta was the 33rd-most populated city in the world. Now, with 42 million people, it is number one, and sinking fast.
(UN)
A Kodak moment. And finally, not necessarily relevant to The Kable, but here is something heart-warming for you to look at. The winning images from this year’s Nature inFocus photography awards, an annual competition with some amazing pics. Because, for a change, end your week with some awwws.
(Nature inFocus)
Oh, and Gopal Nair doesn’t want you to see this.
Quite interesting