Have I Mentioned Our Project

Tonight Miles is getting the materials for our syringe. We will begin construction soon. Raya and I are planning to work on the written portion of the syringe

This is a drawing which Miles worked on and scanned in. This process took up much of his precious time.

I was given special permission from the artist to display the above image.

A Serious Post

I generally like to cut down on lengthy quotes, but I don't think I can paraphrase this any better. This is from a United Nations website on sub-Saharan Africa.

"Unfortunately, efforts to eradicate poverty, empower women, reduce child mortality and improve maternal health in the region continue to be severely undercut by the devastating AIDS pandemic and by massive human displacements in the wake of natural disasters, violent conflicts and debilitating political strife. In a region that is home to more than 60 per cent of the world's HIV-positive people, halting and reversing the spread of HIV, as well as addressing related issues of malaria and tuberculosis, must be among the highest priorities. Addressing the reproductive health needs of the millions of women and adolescents currently at risk for contracting the infection is critical to this effort. Two-thirds of those newly infected with HIV in the region are women. About 7 per cent of young women and 2.2 per cent of men aged 15-24 years in sub-Saharan Africa were living with HIV at the end of 2004."

Although I don't feel like I can say that all of this relates to the Meningitis epidemics, much of it could relate. Other diseases (AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis), also spread quickly through the region and infections like these could easily lead to weakened immune systems making people even more susceptible to other illnesses. "Human displacements" would logically lead to the spread of disease. Conflicts and political strife pull governmental focus away from protecting their citizens health and everyday needs.

I still need to know what the social and religious culture is like to know how that affects the spread of meningitis in the Meningitis Belt. I also would like to know more about living conditions.

The Perfect Post

This post is about the factors which lead to Meningitis epidemics in the Meningitis belt. This answers my own question in a previous post.

My first source is a website from Brown University, which is well known and respected. The Url is: http://www.brown.edu/Courses/Bio_160/Projects2005/meningitis/epidemiology.htm This sight has an entire section dedicated to meningitis a lot of useful and easy to understand material.

According to the above cite, one of the factors that leads to meningitis in the Meningitis Belt is the climate. Epidemics occur most often in the dry season, which is exceptionally dry and during this season there are frequent dust storms. This damages people's "mucosal barriers." As I understand it, Mucosal barriers are an important part of the immune system which help prevent infections that spread similarly to meningitis. If a person's mucosal barriers are damaged, they are at higher risk for contracting meningitis.

http://jcm.asm.org/cgi/content/full/43/10/5129#R16







This site from the Journal of Clinical Microbiology confirms the above information. It also says that the Meningitis Belt is more likely to have epidemics because people are exposed to new strains of the disease there. I don't really understand why that is.

I think that the climate being a major factor is interesting, especially if we look at it with our essential question. Is is possible that the epidemics are not related to economics? I'd like to know more about the lifestyle in sub-saharan Africa.

The above image complements my post. It is from the reliable United Nations website (http://www.un.org/issues/gallery/Africa/index2.htm). It depicts African children playing as a dust storm starts.

Why lie?

Once again, it is approaching 10 P.M. It's the last day of a three day weekend and the guilt of not having thought about homework all weekend is so heavy I think my skull might cave in.

Just Kidding.

I thought about lying and saying that I have been working on my research all weekend and I wanted to put it into one big "weekend research post". I thought you might believe it too, considering my blunt honesty in the past. But I decided against it, my dear readership of 1. I have decided to trust you and share with you the truth.

The truth is, as I'm sure you know, that the weekends are not a time for studying and research. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but none of them apply here so I will spare you the details. The fact is that you know all about it, because you are probably as guilty of it as I am, if not more.

So here I am, trying to remember what this project is all about. Ah, thanks to my own genius, I have the essential question posted on my blog. I will work from there.

In order to answer the essential question, " What social, economic, or environmental factors cause the sub-Saharan African "Meningitis Belt" to have large epidemincs of Meningitis which rarely occur in first-world countries," I will need to know much more information about the Meningitis Belt, and I will also need to get a sense of Meningitis in first-world nations (when in doubt, state the obvious).

Speaking of stating the obvious, the United States is a first-world country. I'll start there. In the United States, cases of meningitis are seen mostly in younger children, teens, and the elderly. People living in close contact (e.g. dorms and military bases) are at higher risk too. Meningitis spreading through a dorm or child care centers could resemble a miniature epidemic. It could be interesting to see what similarites living in a dorm and living in the Meningitis Belt have.

Access to good sanitary conditions lowers the risk of Meningitis in the United States. We also have access to several preventative vaccines. Last year, my physician recommended that I get the Meningococcal conjugate vaccine (MCV4). I declined, but that's beside the point.

In the U.S. we also have access to treatment. A physician or pediatrician can diagnose Meningitis and prescribe the best anti-biotic or combination of anti-biotics to cure the illness.

Preventative anti-biotics are sometimes prescribed to people in close contact with people who are diagnosed with the illness.

In other words, Meningitis in the States is prevented and treated when and if it shows up. It is not especially common and people who're at risk (college students, kids in daycare) are warned about the risk and it is generally recommended that they recieve the preventative vaccination.
http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/library/DS/00118.html

The above image is from the "For Parent By Parents" website(http://www.forparentsbyparents.com/info_medic_meningitis.html), and is designed to educate parents on how to watch for Meningitis in young children.

This image from the University of Texas Health Center(http://publicaffairs.uth.tmc.edu/hleader/archive/Infectious_Disease/2005/meningitis-0822.html) tells students to get vaccinated before returning to school.

So that's Meningitis in the U.S. I will have to see if this is similar to other first-world nations. Also, tune in next time for what conditions cause Meningitis in the Meningitis Belt.

The Long Awaited...

Essential Question:

What social, economic, or environmental factors cause the sub-Saharan African "Meningitis Belt" to have large epidemincs of Meningitis which rarely occur in first-world countries?


The project update is that Raya and Miles are totally psyched about building a ginormous syringe. Though this idea was proposed by yours truly, I can barely handle small needles. We'll see how this goes. Our project proposal has been approved (first approval in the class) and we all still love each other. I think this project might just be fun.

Right now, Miles is sketching our syringe while practicing his ability to see into the future while Raya does all the research I should be doing.

And that's the news from *wink* Spencer's classroom.

A Comparitive Reflection, A Cure, and An Allergic Reaction

When a pet dies, your dog is sick, and all the clothes appropriate for the interview you have today aren't clean, it's good to turn on the news and/or study diseases in third-world countries. I mean, so what if my white shirt's not clean, atleast the thin layer protecting my brain and spinal cord is intact. That will impress the interviewer, eh?

What's even better than feeling glad that you're not someone else, is feeling glad for someone else. So the real topic of today's post is penicillin, an antibiotic which is used in the treatment of Meningitis.

Penicillin is made from Penicillium molds. As with other antibiotics it prevents the spread of bacteria by stopping the development of the cell wall. When it was first created it was considered a "miracle drug" because of its revolutionary ability to cure bacterial infections (props for big words?). This information along with a complete unneccessary history can be found here:http://www.herbarium.usu.edu/fungi/FunFacts/penicillin.htm. The basics of the history are that Alexander Fleming discovered the properties of penicillin and a bunch of other scientists found ways to make production better and found better types of penicillium molds to use. Penicillin was very important in WWII. If more information about the drug is needed. I'll post it later.

The pictures are from these pages:

http://www.botany.utoronto.ca/ResearchLabs/MallochLab/Malloch/Moulds/Illustrations/Penicillium_atramentosum.jpg

fig.cox.miami.edu/.../255/255enz/enzymology.htm

The left one is the chemical make-up of penicillin and the right is a penicillium mold spore.

In other interesting news, Miles is allergic to penicillin. When asked about his penicillin allergy, Miles says, "I don't know what happens, I think I get like a rash or something." Fascinating, don't you think? He should get a Meningitis vaccine.

Meningitis and the Belt

Here's the overview (from a reliable source):

The name Meningitis comes from the part of the body known as the meninges. The meninges is a thin layer which surrounds the brain and spinal cord. Meningitis is caused by bacteria infecting infecting the meninges. Although several bacteria can cause meningitis, the most prominent one is Neisseria meningitidis. Neisseria meningitidis can cause large epidemics. The disease spreads through droplets of respiratory fluids. This means that anyone who lives with or comes in contact with the person can be exposed through sneezing, coughing, or any contact. Symptoms include headaches, vomiting, light sensitivity, and stiff neck. It is often treated with Penicillin, though other antibiotics can be used as well. When Meningitis epidemics strike in Africa oily chloramphenicol is often used as a treatment.(http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs141/en/)

It seems that the disease would be difficult to recognize when it shows up sporadically in nations such as the U.S., New Zealand, and Spain. Although it would most likely be treated with antibiotics anyway, would it not? That's something to check out. My group and I are interested in possibly doing a comparison of the treatment and social response to Meningitis in richer areas and poorer areas, such as the Meningitis belt.

Above is a map of the meningitis belt. It was stolen from this website:

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900LargeMaps/SKAR-64GESW?OpenDocument

(Don't tell or they'll send the United Nations Country Team in Ethiopia after me.)

The WHO's page on Meningitis (linked above) says that much of the epidemic problem in the meningitis belt of sub-Saharan Africa is caused by the social situation and overcrowding. Though this is horrible, it makes the area a very possible candidate for the geographic region we study for this project.

Miles, Raya, and I talked about a few different ideas for our essential question and final product today. Our ideas for the product still need a lot of work. For the question, we are trying to decided what region we want to focus on and whether we want to do a comparison of two or several. I think we ought to do a comparison between Meningitis in richer nations and poorer nations. Though I think there would be plenty of work and information if we just focused on the Meningitis Belt.

The Truths that All Teachers Know

So, this blog idea is both ingenious and evil. As I understand it, the idea is to make sure that students are actually, you know, doing their research. Generally the idea is that the teacher pretends that the students are taking the entire time given to complete the assignment, even though everyone knows that the assignment will get started maybe around 10:00 the night before it's due.

Of course, I myself am not guilty of this as you can tell by the time this was posted. In fact, I am so responsible, that I'm posting on the weekend after the blog was assigned (This is only because I saw that other "responsible" students like Joe and Gabby had posted of their blogs and I wanted to seem as awesome as them).

So Truth #1 is that students procrastinate. Truth #2 is that most students use wikipedia, despite it's bad rep for unreliable information. So I've decided that in the spirit of honesty I will first post the information that is found on wikipedia. Now, have no fear teachers, I will not rely on this information. I will merely use it as a starting point. What's kind of ironic about this is that I actually didn't go to wikipedia first, but I lost the name of the website I was on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meningococcal_disease

Ha! There's not much there. I've been let down by Jimmy Wales (It said on the back of my mother's Starbucks Cup that he started Wikipedia).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meningitis

The above page has much more information. Apparently, Meningitis is caused by microorganisms. Also, there is an area in Africa known as the Meningitis Belt. I will definitely have to look that up at a reliable source. That might be the area we can study. The disease has huge outbreaks there.

It can be treated with Penicillin G (Miles is allergic that), but must be diagnosed and treated quickly. There are also several vaccines for different types of Meningitis. From this article it sounds like Meningoccal Disease (my topic), only refers to one type of Meningitis. That might complicate our research.

So my plan over the next week is to learn more about the "Meningitis Belt" in Africa, learn more about the way the disease actually affects the body, and learn some more about penicillin. I think that should be quite a bit. I wonder how long I could put it off?