Medical Entomology Workshop in Ngaoundere
In March 2012, a one week course in Medical Entomology, Parasitology, Immunology and Molecular Biology was held at the University of Ngaoundéré.
Cameroon-Excursion 2012: Microscopes received
Part of the Cameroon-Excursion 2012 shall be a teaching course on Medical Entomology & Parasitology at the University of Ngaoundéré, where the 10 students from Tübingen shall participate together with 40 master-students from Ngaoundéré. During one week, teaching sessions shall take place in the morning and excursions to field in the afternoon. A major component shall be the microscopic examination and identification of vectors and parasites by microscopy and molecular techniques. We now have received a loan of 7 Leitz microscopes from the Tübingen Institute of Tropical Medicine to use them for this excursion.
ESPs of 2 millions of microfilariae preserved!
During her stay in Ngaoundéré, Silke van Hoorn from the Bernhard-Nocht-Institut in Hamburg isolated about 2 million of Onchocerca ochengi microfilariae from the skin of cattle (skin samples from the slaughterhouse) and kept them in-vitro to obtain excretory-secretory products (ESPs) for further bio-molecular examinations. These microfilariae had to be separated from those of Onchocerca gutturosa, which also dwell in the skin. This is difficult.
Therefore another option was also tried by Achille Paguem, a Camerooninan student working in our lab: To isolate living microfilariae from the uterus of gravid female worms. Although those intrauterine (i.u.) microfilariae may not be fully mature, they are free from non-O. ochengi contamination. Achille has harvested about 800.000 i.u. microfilariae up-to-now.
Funding from the DFG
Dr. Daniel Achukwi behind his new dissecting microscopeZeiss Stemi 2000, bought for IRAD from our DFG-grant. (photo by Albert Eisenbarth)
Read more
Welcome
A very warm welcome to the homepage of Programme Onchocercoses. Our research network in Ngaoundéré, Cameroon, is based on over 35 years of successful partnership between research institutes in Germany, Great Britain, France and many other countries. It combines resources, know-how and skills of the participating partners to answer key questions and improve the understanding of fundamental mechanisms underlying host-parasite interaction, pathogenesis and population biology of filarial parasites.
This website aims to
- Improve public knowledge on Onchocerciasis (river blindness)
- Keep our readers up-to-date with the latest project news
- Give an overview of life on our research compound in Cameroon
Please feel free to explore our website.
Simulium Traps
Simulium damnosum s.l. blackflies attack man, cattle and game animals. In order to study the hostfinding behaviour and to develop traps for blood-hungy flies, we constructed a number of automatic traps. => Read more
Silke, Anna and Tobias now in Ngaoundéré
Silke, Anna and Tobias from Hamburg and Münster arrived in Ngaoundéré. Silke and Tobias shall focus on the production of ESPs of microfilariae and infective L3. They stay for two months in Cameroon. Anna is preparing for her master in linguistics and shall stay for four weeks.
New WILD M5 dissecting microscope for Kalip
The dissecting microscope, Kalip has been using to examine Simulium flies for filarial infections, has been the oldest in our lab: It was bought in 1976 and shipped to Cameroon directly from Switzerland. For 35 years, the microscope has served in the humid rain-forest and dusty savannah. Its mechanical parts are still looking very fine, but the optics suffered from heavy fungal infections. We were happy to have received a second-hand M5 dissection microscope, of the same age, but with clean optics for very little money. Mr Schneider, the skillfull mechanics of our Zoological Institute in Tübingen, replaced one missing screw. It shall now serve for many years to come!
25 years Lake Nyos disaster
It is now 25 years that lake Nyos in the Nord-West Province released a toxic cloude of volcanic gazes that killed 1.700 people.
Spiegel-Online commemorates this disaster: http://einestages.spiegel.de/static/topicalbumbackground/23352/toedliche_wolke_aus_dem_see.html
Volcanic activities still continue at Mount Cameroon. During its last eruption a flow of lava of 16 km almost reached the coast.
The volcanic lava still smoking in 2002
Charitable donation received!
Programme Onchocercoses thanks to a private donor for his support of our research in Cameroon. He wrote:
“Sie haben mir von Ihrem persönlichen Einsatz bei der Bekämpfung der Flussblindkrankheit erzählt und mich mit Ihrer Schilderung der Genese dieser Krankheit und den Chancen ihrer Bekämpfung gefesselt, dabei auch meine biologischen Interessen angesprochen. Ich glaube und hoffe, dass Sie auf einem guten Wege sind. Aber auch, wenn Ihre Forschungen eines Tages nicht zum gewünschten Ziel führen sollten, haben Sie doch Menschen in Afrika und auch Ihren Studenten zu einer guten Beschäftigung und sinnvollen Aufgabe verholfen. Dazu wollte ich ein wenig beitragen.”
The donation of 1.000,- Euro shall be used to support young students in learning field-work methods of medical entomology.
