International Society for Neglected Diseases (ISNTD) Festival in London (Barbican Centre) 23rd of February

Programme Onchocercoses has been invited to take part in the 2017 Festival of the ISNTD on February 23rd in the Barbican-Centre in London.

=> for festival, see http://isntdfestival.com/showcase/4592561605

for programme, see http://isntdfestival.com/programme/4593247637

The presentation of Alfons Renz shall be at 16.30 in Session 4: Monitoring & Evaluation: lessons learned and the road ahead

This talk shall summarize the past 50 years  of research on riverblindness in Cameroon, from the heroic times of Drs Duke, Anderson and Fuglsang, to the first ivermectin-mass-treatments that started in 1987 and to the actual situation, which is characterized by a striking decrease of both vector biting rates (this was unexpected!), transmission and Onchocerca infections. Ivermectin, socio-economic development of the rural villages and zooprophylaxis by cattle have contributed to this success.

Onchocerciasis has been called to affect the people ‘living at the end of the road’. Therefore, rural development is a key-factor for control. From the organisation of community-organized distribution of Ivermectin by local health-workers, to changes in the way of life and clothing, which reduces the contact to the Simulium vector flies. Cattle, being an ideal proxy for the human blood-host, can beneficially interfere in many ways: Diverting blood-searching flies by zooprophylaxis and providing a significant degree of premunition by cross-transmission of the bovine parasite, Onchocerca ochengi.

by artist Must from Ngaoundéré

Painting by artist Must from Ngaoundéré

Barbican-Centre-23-02-2017-kompBarbican-Centre-23-02-2017-David-Molyneux-komp   Barbican-Centre-23-02-2017-Pamela-Cameroon-komp

Student Rahel Schnell in Ngaoundéré

In November 2016, biology-student Rahel Schnell was in the Prog-Oncho lab to do a practice on Simulium breeding sites around Ngaoundéré. Read her report (in German):

Bericht-Kamerunaufenthalt-Rahel-Schnell-Oktober 2016

Rahel-Schnell-2016

Workshop: Molecular Methods in Medical Entomology and Parasitology

Workshop on molecular methods in medical entomology & parasitology took place in Tübingen from July 31st to August 13th.

Eight students and parasitologists from Cameroon and one from Tunisia came to Tübingen to participate in this workshop, together with German students. For two weeks, they concentrated on combining the classical techniques of medical entomology and parasitology with the methods of molecular genetic identification of vectors and pathogens.

The participants are biologists, doctors of veterinary medicine and postgraduate students from the Cameroonian universities of Ngaoundéré and Buea, from the regional centers of the Institut de Recherches Agronomiques pour le Developpement (IRAD) de Bambui et Wakwa and from the Ecôle véterinaire de l’université de Tunis.

 

Participants-Workshop-2016Participants-Workshop-2016-A  Participants of the workshop

 

 

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Afrika-Festival Tübingen 2016

The Tübingen Afrika-Festival 2016 has started!

From Thursday morning till Sunday evening, the Afrika-Festival Tübingen 2016 shall take place on the Festplatz in Tübingen. Like every year, we are present in a pavillon, where we inform about our research activities in Cameroon.

Particular topics of this year’s festival are the scientific collaboration & research.

Mor information on the festival is available at:

http://www.afrikafestival.net/de/

Our last year’s presentatation can be found at:

https://www.riverblindness.eu/programme-onchocercoses-at-afrika-festival-tubingen-2015/

and a report about our scientific co-operation and research under:

http://www.afrikafestival.net/images/Jahresbericht/AfrikAktiv_Jahresbericht_2015.pdf => pages 16 ff!

We are looking forward to this meeting – the temperatures are already Africa-like hot.

And we would be very pleased meeting you there in our pavillon, close to the entrance of the festival-site.

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Prestigeous grant for Dr. Albert Eisenbarth!

We are very happy to announce that Albert Eisenbarth was successful with his application for a RISK-grant of our faculty!

These grants are ment to support young Postdoc researchers to develop their own ideas and projects. His specific idea focuses on novel methods of identifying parasitic pathogens in cattle with an aim to link the susceptibility or resistance of different cattle breeds to their genetic traits. Cameroon has not only a tremendous load of parasites in cattle (trypanosomes, piroplasmids, filariae, gastro-intestinal nematode worms, Eimeria, cestodes and flukes etc.), but also a variety of cattle breeds (taurine and Zebu species). Some breeds are more (or less) resistant (or susceptible) to the local pathogens and could thus constitute a basis for a rational approach to increase cattle productivity. Unfortunately disease resistance is linked, as a general rule, to poor meat and milk productivity.

To gether with our Cameroonian colleagues and PhD-students he shall develop new molecular techniques for the identification of parasites and traits of resistance and susceptibility.

His application was among the two bests of our faculty. Thus he has been invited to re-enforce his application with an option to increase its budget from the 35.000 Euro, that he has already received, to a total of 100.000 Euro.

We congratulate him for this great success, which shall open new aspects for long-lasting collaboration between Tübingen and Cameroon researchers.

Alfons Renz

Albert-Eisenbarth-Rigorosum Dr. Albert Eisenbarth, university of Tübingen

DFG-Meeting in Yaoundé

The this year’s annual meeting of the DFG-partners in the field of Neglected Parasitic Diseases in Africa took place in Yaoundé, the catital of Cameroon.

About 100 partners met in the Dejeuga palace hotes from the 1 st to 5th of June to present their on-going projects. Prior to the presentation, a young-scientist’s workshop provided insight into the skills of writing grant applications and managing DFG-funded projects. Read more

Student Alexander Böck – Practical in Ngaoundéré

Part of our DFG- and Baden-Württemberg is the exchange of students to enable them to carry out their own research. Alexander has arrived in Cameroon, together with Dr. Albert Eisenbarth, in May 2016. He is staying in the Programme Onchocercoses laboratory until mid-July. His particular interest is the movement of the microfilariae of Onchocerca ochengi in the skin. Previous work by Frey Zettl has shown that the natural movements of microfilariae is directed towards the ‘head’ and enables them to move quiet quickly, about 1 mm in less than 10 seconds (=> see the video on the front-page of our website!).

The question now, which Alexander is going to investigate is, whether there are any attractants (physical or chemical cues), which can prompt the microfilaria to move into a defined directed – or to avoid it.

Alexander is also participating in the routine inspections of Simulium breeding sites and the monitoring of Onchocerca spp. transmission by anthropo-boophilic Simulium flies.

We wish him all the best for his stay in Ngaoundéré!

Alfons Renz

 

Alexander-Boek-2016-komp

 

stud. biol. Alexander Böck, Univ. of Tübingen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back from Cameroon, he wrote this report on his practical in Ngaoundéré

=> Read more

Collaboration with Spanish Colleagues

Ngaoundéré, Cameroon.

Based on a collaboration with Dr. Carlos Chaccour from the university of Navarra in Spain, a veterinarian, Dr. Gloria Abizanda Sarasa from the Pamplona university, came to Ngaoundéré to start a new trial on the long-acting effects of high doses of ivermectin on Onchocerca worms and disease vectors. Together with our Cameroonian colleagues Drs. Achukwi and Kingslay Manchang, we started fieldwork in May 2016.

Alfons Renz

 

ProgOncho-Team-2016 Body-length-measurement Dan-taking-bloodsample DFG-animals DFG-bull Implantation-of-depot

 

Dies universitatis of the University of Tübingen – Presentation of Programme Onchocercoses

Like every semester, the dies universitatis of the university of Tübingen takes place during the first week of the lectures. This time on the 15th of October.

Programme Onchocercoses was present on the Morgenstelle (Hörsaalzentrum) from 14 to 16 hrs and in the Neuen Aula from 18 to 20 hrs.

See: https://www.uni-tuebingen.de/aktuelles/dies-universitatis-2015.html

 

UT-research-2015-Dies universitatis-RENZ

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a long day of presentations, from 14 to 20 hrs! And a very interesting experience for all of us.

Thanks to Sophia Stiegler, Francois Korbmacher and Freya Zettl, which just had come back from Cameroon and Babette Abanda, a PhD-student from Cameroon, the set-up of our installation with two microscopes and posters went quickly. We showed parasites from Cameroon and their vectors. The aim was to give an impression of our on-going work in the Programme Onchocercoses fieldstation in Cameroon and to motivate students to join our team.

Dies universitatis 2015 - Morgenstelle-our team

 

 

 

 

 

The site for the – only two! – presentations of the Faculty of Natural Sciences had been quiet unfavorably selected in the Hörsaalzentrum on the Morgenstelle. In a place, where it was dark and where only few students passed, mostly in a great hurry between their lectures.

Dies universitatis 2015 - Morgenstelle-5

 

At the left site, there was the laser-show of the presentation of the Institute of Physics (PD Dr. Sebastian Slama): For better visibility, we had moved to the other, more illuminated site of the floor.

 

 

 

Dies universitatis 2015 - Morgenstelle-our team

 

 

However, only very few visitors came – so we were mostly occupied by ourselves, since this was for the first time that the students met after their stay in Cameroon. And there was plenty of time to answer emails!

 

 

At 16 hrs, we moved to the Neue Aula, the main university building. There, the Hall was booming of students, visiting the about 100 presentations of the ‘Markt der Möglichkeiten’. From 18 to 20 hrs, we had the occasion to present our field-work in Cameroon, to show parasites and vectors under the microscopes and discuss with students and teachers. This was a great success. A number of students now intend to attend the ‘Cameroon-Seminar’ of Babette Abanda and some were asking to do their practical in Cameroon. We hope that this shall be possible by the funding of the Baden-Württemberg-Stiftung, which is supporting our Africa-German collaboration.

Dies universitatis 2015 - Neue Aula-14 Dies universitatis 2015 - Neue Aula-11 Dies universitatis 2015 - Neue Aula-9 Dies universitatis 2015 - Neue Aula-8 Dies universitatis 2015 - Neue Aula-6 Dies universitatis 2015 - Neue Aula-3 Dies universitatis 2015 - Neue Aula-1 Dies universitatis 2015 - Neue Aula-17

Reports of Tübingen students on their fieldwork in the Programme Onchocercoses laboratory in Ngaoundéré, Cameroon

Three students from the Tübingen University came to the Programme Onchocercoses laboratory in Ngaoundéré in the summer 2015 to do their practicals. They were assisted during their field work by Babette Abanda from the University of Ngaoundéré and Albert Eisenbarth and Alfons Renz from the Tübingen University.

Francois

 

Francois Korbmacher studied the occurrence of protozoan and bacterial pathogens in ticks: The predominant tick-species that bite on cattle  in Northern Cameroon, Amblyomma variegatum and Boophilus decoloratus, are vectors of Piroplasmidae, Rickettsiae, Anaplasma, Ehrlichia and, possibly, also Borrellia species.

Using consensus primers and a PCR-approach, Francois tried to identify positive ticks.

=> Read more about the work of Francois => Francois-Korbmacher-2015-Field report

 

 

 

 

Freya Labor

Freya Zettl

 

 

Freya Zettl  took video-movies of live microfilariae of various Onchocerca species. It is astonishing to notice, that different species have microfilariae of very different sizes and movements, though they are living in the same environment, the skin of cattle. However, they are transmitted by different species of blood-sucking arthropods (Simuliidae and Ceratopogonidae etc.). There must be a link between the size and movements of microfilariae and their specific vectors!

=> Read more about the work of Freya => Freya Zettl – Project Report-2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sophia Stiegler -2015

Sophia Stiegler injected microfilariae of Onchocerca ochengi into the thorax of neonate Simulium flies.

Even in those flies, which normally do not bite on man or cattle. The proportion of microfilariae surviving and developing to the L3-stage varies and is an indicator of the vectorial ability of Simulium species and strain.

=> Read more about the work of Sophia =>Report Sophia Stiegler-2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

Students-and-staff-2015

 

 

Students and staff  in the Programme Onchocercoses laboratory in Ngaoundéré.