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Understanding and appreciation of indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) are essential for promoting sustainable agriculture development. IKS provides a cultural basis for nonformal agricultural programs that is absent in technology transfer approaches. (SK)

Navicula nielsfogedii was recently described from tropical and sub-tropical Africa. New data on its distribution from several countries in Asia are provided in this paper, together with morphological observations and environmental information about the habitats where it was found. Since N. nielsfogedii was previously misidentified as Navicula heimansioides the morphology of both taxa is compared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protected areas are crucial to safeguard Sub-Saharan Africa's extraordinary and abundant megafauna. In many of these areas, instability has derailed conservation efforts and impeded adequate wildlife monitoring. Discovered in 2004, Eastern chimpanzees are found in the Central Uele Basin in northern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) within the Bili-Uéré Protected Areas Complex (BUPAC), the largest contiguous protected area in the country. BUPAC is threatened by habitat destruction, mining, wild meat trade, and insecurity. BUPAC chimpanzees are part of the largest remaining continuous population of the species in Africa; they are also being behaviourally unique. Forest elephants were frequent in the 1960′s in the BUPAC but have declined significantly up to 2004–2007. We used line transects to estimate Eastern chimpanzee and forest elephant density in the BUPAC core area in 2016 and 2019 and compared these with the 2004–2007 surveys. A total of 37 and 137 two km long line transects were systematically placed in 5,841 km2 and 6,176 km2 survey areas in 2016 and 2019, respectively. We found that chimpanzee density did not change during the two survey periods but indicators for forest elephant density decreased eight-fold. Human activities were detected mainly along the core area periphery in both survey years, where they overlapped with centres of animal activity. The stable high density of chimpanzees is a positive outcome for the core BUPAC. However, despite being a conservation priority area that has received relatively intensified protection, declining forest elephant numbers are likely to reflect the high number of human conflict hotspots in vicinity as well as the increasing human population density around the core area. We propose by elevating the core area to National Park whilst strengthening on the ground enforcement and management structures as well as legal measures against poaching might ensure the long-term survival of such an important area in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) has developed and applied a landscape-scale conservation planning methodology in eight priority conservation landscapes in Africa, areas we call African Heartlands. The foundation of the African Heartland Program is a landscape-scale planning process that has been developed and applied as part of the overall Heartland Conservation Process. This process helps AWF and its partners develop intervention strategies that address critical threats to the ecological viability of these landscapes, and to specific biodiversity conservation targets, whilst also working to improve the livelihoods of local people. In applying this participatory planning process to eight conservation landscapes in Africa we have begun to document and learn about the benefits and limitations of planning and implementation at the landscapescalewith stakeholders. We draw out lessons on the challenges and successes from our experience. Central to this are the merits of balancing a systematic science-based and pragmatic approach to landscape-scale conservation planning while addressing the needs and aspirations of local people. This approach could be particularly useful for other large-scale conservation planning efforts in developing countries where conservation objectives and human livelihoods are inextricably linked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global surveillance for a novel rhinovirus genotype indicated its association with community outbreaks and pediatric respiratory disease in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America. Molecular dating indicates that these viruses have been circulating for at least 250 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents critic David V. Williams's response to the response of author David Seidman with regard to review of his book "The State, Law and Development" by Williams. The author says he found Seidman's reply to his review and critique to be both interesting and stimulating. He also found it to be less eclectic. The author accepts that his review paid little attention to super structural differences between the various African states. This is not to say that there are no significant differences. The political and legal orders in Zaire and Chad, for example, are apparently less stable than those in Ivory Coast and Kenya. The cordial relationships, which the governing classes of Morocco and Senegal have with those of France and the United States of America, are significantly different from the more tempestuous relationships of the rulers of Zambia and Tanzania with the powerful Western interests which control their economies. The question of inducing modifications in the relations of production as they affect the mass of workers and peasants can only arise after control of state power is settled.

The MSA/LSA transition is a major shift in the African archaeological record, but questions on its beginning remain debated. In southern Africa, most sites suggest an origin of LSA technology after about 30.000 years BP. The single exception is Border Cave situated at the border between South Africa and Eswatini, with surprisingly old dates of ∼43.000 BP associated with an LSA-like bipolar quartz assemblage. While many researchers now consider Border Cave to represent the origin of the LSA in southern Africa, these findings lack proper contextualization with regional lithic and chronometric data. Here we pursue the question whether Border Cave provides firm evidence for the source of LSA technology that later spread to the rest of southern Africa. To test between different hypotheses, we provide new chronometric and lithic data from the site of Sibebe, situated in the highveld of Eswatini only 100 km distant to Border Cave, and contextualize these results with nearby localities. Eswatini represents an ideal study area as it features many excavated sites but remains heavily understudied, rarely appearing in comparative MSA/LSA research. Our analyses at Sibebe identify two distinct groups of MSA lithic assemblages dated to between 43.000 and 27.000 cal BP by C14, overlain by a late Holocene LSA industry. The latest MSA expression at Sibebe features finely shaped unifacial and bifacial points without trends towards LSA technology. A comparative review of sites in Eswatini, South Africa, and Mozambique confirms similar MSA industries post-dating 30.000 BP but finds no evidence for LSA technologies before ∼27.000 BP. These findings suggest that Border Cave cannot mark the origin of the much later LSA in southern Africa, but rather signifies an early set of locally specific behavioral innovations that appeared and disappeared again. These findings have important implications for the spread of new technologies and our understanding of cultural evolutionary trajectories in southern Africa and beyond. • New lithic technological and chronometric data on Sibebe shows the persistence of Middle Stone Age technologies beyond 30.000 cal BP in southern Africa. • Our analysis places the MSA/LSA transition in southern Africa after 30.000 cal BP and refute the hypothesis that Border Cave constitutes the origin of Later Stone Age technologies already at ∼43.000 cal BP. • There is a significant gap of several thousand years between Middle and Later Stone Age occupations in Eswatini. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Snakebite disproportionally affects children living in impoverished rural communities. The WHO has recently reinstated snakebites on its list of Neglected Tropical Diseases and launched a comprehensive Strategy for the Prevention and Control of Snakebite Envenoming. In the first of a two paper series, we describe the epidemiology, socioeconomic impact and key prevention strategies. We also explore current challenges and priorities including the production and distribution of safe and effective antivenom., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

The development of snake antivenoms more than a century ago should have heralded effective treatment of the scourge of snakebite envenoming in impoverished, mostly rural populations around the world. That snakebite still exists today, as a widely untreated illness that maims, kills and terrifies men, women and children in vulnerable communities, is a cruel anachronism. Antivenom can be an effective, safe and affordable treatment for snakebites, but apathy, inaction and the politicisation of public health have marginalised both the problem (making snakebite arguably the most neglected of all neglected tropical diseases) and its solution. For lack of any coordinated approach, provision of antivenoms has been pushed off the public health agenda, leading to an incongruous decline in demand for these crucial antidotes, excused and fed by new priorities, an absence of epidemiological data, and a poor regulatory framework. These factors facilitated the infiltration of poor quality products that degrade user confidence and undermine legitimate producers. The result is that tens of thousands are denied an essential life-saving medicine, allowing a toll of human suffering that is a summation of many individual catastrophes. No strategy has been developed to address this problem and to overcome the intransigence and inaction responsible for the global tragedy of snakebite. Attempts to engage with the broader public health community through the World Health Organisation (WHO), GAVI, and other agencies have failed. Consequently, the toxinology community has taken on a leadership role in a new approach, the Global Snakebite Initiative, which seeks to mobilise the resources, skills and experience of scientists and clinicians for whom venoms, toxins, antivenoms, snakes and snakebites are already fields of interest. Proteomics is one such discipline, which has embraced the potential of using venoms in bio-discovery and systems biology. The fields of venomics and antivenomics have recently evolved from this discipline, offering fresh hope for the victims of snakebites by providing an exciting insight into the complexities, nature, fundamental properties and significance of venom constituents. Such a rational approach brings with it the potential to design new immunising mixtures from which to raise potent antivenoms with wider therapeutic ranges. This addresses a major practical limitation in antivenom use recognised since the beginning of the 20th century: the restriction of therapeutic effectiveness to the specific venom immunogen used in production. Antivenomic techniques enable the interactions between venoms and antivenoms to be examined in detail, and if combined with functional assays of specific activity and followed up by clinical trials of effectiveness and safety, can be powerful tools with which to evaluate the suitability of current and new antivenoms for meeting urgent regional needs. We propose two mechanisms through which the Global Snakebite Initiative might seek to end the antivenom drought in Africa and Asia: first by establishing a multidisciplinary, multicentre, international collaboration to evaluate currently available antivenoms against the venoms of medically important snakes from specific nations in Africa and Asia using a combination of proteomic, antivenomic and WHO-endorsed preclinical assessment protocols, to provide a validated evidence base for either recommending or rejecting individual products; and secondly by bringing the power of proteomics to bear on the design of new immunising mixtures to raise Pan-African and Pan-Asian polyvalent antivenoms of improved potency and quality. These products will be subject to rigorous clinical assessment. We propose radically to change the basis upon which antivenoms are produced and supplied for the developing world. Donor funding and strategic public health alliances will be sought to make it possible not only to sustain the financial viability of antivenom production partnerships, but also to ensure that patients are relieved of the costs of antivenom so that poverty is no longer a barrier to the treatment of this important, but grossly neglected public health emergency., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

This study is a cost-benefits analysis of the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for presumptive anti-malarial treatment among departing West African refugees. We conducted a retrospective chart review of symptomatic, blood smear-positive cases of malaria seen in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from 1996 through 2005. Billing charges of U.S. care were compared with estimates of implementation costs for overseas treatment. Fifty-eight symptomatic malaria infections occurred among West African refugees. After overseas pre-departure presumptive treatment, symptomatic malaria in arriving refugees decreased from 8.2% to 0%. The pre-departure number needed to treat to prevent one case of symptomatic malaria is 13.9 (95% confidence interval = 9.8-24). The average U.S. billing charge for each malaria case is $1,730. Overseas implementation costs for presumptive treatment are estimated to be between $141 and $346 to prevent one U.S. malaria case. Overseas presumptive pre-departure anti-malarial therapy prevents clinical malaria in refugees and results in cost-benefits when the malaria prevalence is > 1%. Overseas presumptive therapy has greater cost-benefits than U.S. based screening and treatment strategies.