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A drone view of a Liberian-flagged cargo ship anchored after Argentine authorities quarantined it on the Parana River over a suspected case of mpox onboard, according to the government, in San Lorenzo, Argentina August 21, 2024.
“Not COVID,” but caution: WHO on high alert as new mpox strain spreads
Thailand confirmed on Thursday that the country has its first case of the new, more dangerous strain of mpox, and Argentina has quarantined a cargo ship in the Parana River over a suspected case onboard.
The news comes as global public health authorities raise the alarm about the fast-spreading variant of the virus, which has already surged in central and eastern Africa. So far in 2024, those regions have recorded over 17,000 infections, and while cases are usually mild, more than 500 people have died.
Mpox is a viral infection that causes pus-filled lesions and flu-like symptoms. It is typically transmitted through intimate physical contact, face-to-face breathing, infected skin lesions, or contaminated objects.
Why is this strain different? The new clade 1b strain has caused concern because it seems to spread more easily through routine close contact, and it is affecting women and children in larger numbers. It is fatal in about 3.6% of cases, especially for children.
Although the World Health Organization has issued a global public health emergency warning, it insists this “is not the new COVID,” and that the spread can be controlled through public health efforts — like enhanced surveillance and tracing, as well as isolating those infected — while the new strain is studied.
Trap Women's Final - Chateauroux Shooting Centre, Deols, France - July 31, 2024. Adriana Ruano Oliva of Guatemala in action.
Hard Numbers: Guatemala wins first-ever gold medal, F-16s fly in Ukraine, CAR meets on mpox outbreak, China’s housing market declines
1: Adriana Ruano wonGuatemala its first-ever gold medal at the Olympics in shooting on Wednesday. Going into the 2024 Games, there were69 countries that had never won a Summer Olympics medal and another 37 that had never won gold. We’ll be watching to see how much shorter that list gets as the Games progress.
60: American-made F-16 fighter jets have begun to arrive in Ukraine and are expected to give Kyiv’s air defenses a much-needed boost in its fight against Russia. Although the US approved the delivery last August, it won’t be providing any of its own planes. Instead, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway have committed to providing Ukraine with more than 60 of them over the coming months in what is likely to be a slow trickle of deliveries.
20,000: Central African Republic officials say they are meeting with the governments of neighboring countries to stop the spread of mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, which has been rapidly spreading in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, and Nigeria. The DRC alone has seen20,000 cases and more than 1,000 deaths from mpox, mainly among children, since the start of 2023.
20: In a rocky start to the third quarter, data shows a continued decline for China’s property sector. Transactions among the country’s top 100 real estate developers fell20% last month from a year ago, equivalent to about $38.7 billion. On a month-over-month basis, sales dropped 36%.
An adult female Anopheles mosquito bites a human body to begin its blood meal at Tehatta, West Bengal; India on 24/02/2023.
Djibouti goes high-tech to take a bite out of malaria
The coastal country of Djibouti, one of the smallest by population in Africa, has a big problem in a tiny package: An invasive species of mosquito from the Indian subcontinent has driven malaria rates through the roof, so the government on Thursday released thousands of genetically modified bugs in a bid to save thousands of lives.
How deadly is the disease? Malaria has probably killed more human beings over the sweep of history than any other single infectious disease, and African governments have been fighting for decades to eliminate it. Djibouti darn near made it: In 2012, the country recorded just 27 cases.
But since then, an invasive species has arrived. Unlike the mosquitoes indigenous to most of Africa, the new bugs thrive in urban environments and bite during the day, making them impossible to avoid. In 2020, over 70,000 people contracted malaria — one in every 15 Djiboutians — of whom 190 died. The invasive bugs are spreading to important cities in Ethiopia and Kenya, and have been found as far away as Lagos, Nigeria, a metropolis of over 15 million.
Fight bugs with bugs: Working with scientists at US firm Oxitec, Djibouti released thousands of genetically modified versions of the invasive mosquitos whose female offspring die quickly. Since only females of the species bite humans, the hope is reducing their number will reduce human exposure.
Similar programs in Brazil met with astonishing success, driving down the population of dengue-carrying mosquitoes by 96%, a model later copied by Panama and the Cayman Islands. We’re watching Djibouti’s plan with great hope.
DNA Helix.
CRISPR gets an AI upgrade
CRISPR, the gene-editing method that won two female scientists the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, may soon get infused with artificial intelligence. One Northern California startup called Profluent is expected to present its new paper at a gene-editing conference next month, which describes its work using AI to analyze biological data and create new gene-editing systems.
As one professor explained to the New York Times, it’s a departure from how CRISPR typically does gene replacement. Instead of altering genes based on discoveries in nature, the startup instead uses novel methods surfaced by its AI. “They have never existed on Earth,” University of California, San Francisco professor James Fraser said. “The system has learned from nature to create them, but they are new.”
Gene-editing is rife with ethical quandaries, such as questions around modifying human embryos, which could be exacerbated by the rise of AI. Still, CRISPR provides hope: it could provide cures to countless diseases and is already providing innovative new treatments for sickle-cell anemia.
Profluent also chose to open-source one of its gene editors, OpenCRISPR-1, though the underlying AI will stay under wraps, the company said.