Pretty Good News on the Health Front

Source: "Malaria and Alzheimer's disease: A jab of hope." The Economist, December 11th 2008.

There is pretty good news with regard to Alzheimer's disease. Ruth Itzhaki reports in the Journal of Pathology that DNA from Herpes simplex, the virus that causes cold sores, is found in the plaques that are associated with Alzheimer's. She believes that genetic vulnerability and Herpes simplex infection may explain 60% of cases. If her research can be replicated and her conclusions stand up, we may better understand the disease. Almost everyone is infected with Herpes simplex, which lies dormant during most of our lives. However, if Dr. Itzhaki is right, the new understanding may lead to better risk assessment, to treatments that will slow or stop the progresion of Alsheimer's (perhaps using antiviral drugs in high risk people), and even promote the development of a vaccine to prevent the triggering infection.

There is better news about malaria. Joe Cohen and his colleagues present the results of a study of a vaccine against malaria in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine. The investigators report that the vaccine with its adjuvant could be combined with regular courses of vaccine given to children without loss of efficacy of either, and that the injection reduced the chance of getting malaria by 60%. The scientists believe that they have an even better adjuvant than that used in the test, and are proposing a large scale Phase 3 trial to prove the intervention. Of course, the new test would not be needed if we were sure that the vaccine would be safe and effective as its proponents believe. If it is, the world would have a new instrument which could be combined with case finding and treatment, bed nets, household DDT spraying, and mosquito control, perhaps finally to knock back malaria. That would be very good news indeed!