n° 75 - July-August 2014
Le journal de l'IRD
Translations: Technicis
Abstracts for the international issue
I
n Vietnam where he ended
his days, Alexandre Yersin,
disciple of Louis Pasteur, must
be turning in his grave. He
discovered the disease agent
120 years ago but the bubonic plague is still rife! It is even endemic in many countries. And while it does
not have the reach of its three historic pandemics which periodically wreaked
havoc until the late 19th century, it still infects more than 2000 people every year and kills almost 200. Although the disease remains virulent, we are
able to treat it and it is now more an issue of access to care and frequency
of contact between people and rodents. ird researchers and the Pasteur Institute of Madagascar are seeking to understand the persistence of
the illness in the Big Island. The results offer new insight into the monitoring
and control of the disease, heralding better-targeted, more effective and
less costly strategies.
P. 1 News
Mobile phones take over
M
A
ntiretroviral treatment has
changed the face of the
paediatric hiv epidemic, which
has become an essentially African phenomenon. Used during pregnancy, childbirth and
breast-feeding to prevent the
transmission of the virus from
the mother to the child, arv drugs have drastically reduced the number of new
infections in developing and emerging countries. Where systematic screening and
prophylactic treatment are offered, scarcely 0.5% of children born to infected mothers become infected in turn. Thus, in France, the paediatric form of the illness accounts for little more than 1500 patients. Drug combinations have also significantly
reduced morbidity and mortality in young sufferers. But paediatric hiv remains a real
epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa, home to 90% of the world’s 3.3 million children
under 15 infected with the disease. It has long remained unnoticed, overshadowed
by the scope of the hiv phenomenon in adults, and health systems have been slow
in adapting to the particularities of young patients. In spite of the needs and recommendations of the who, insufficient access to healthcare remains for children, with
less than 30% receiving the antiretroviral treatment they require. In the absence of
therapeutic care, 52% of infected children die before the age of two and the illness
is now the leading cause of death among adolescents in West Africa.
p. 3 News
Agriculture, genetics and
demography
A
technological, cultural and
environmental revolution,
the birth of agriculture has
played a key role in humanity.
A new study has nonetheless
questioned its influence on
the genetic and demographic
history of African populations. Scientists believed that its arrival on the
continent 5000 years ago created abundant resources, leading to the
expansion of the populations that adopted it. This farming people would
then have gradually differentiated genetically from the pygmy huntergatherer communities living in forests. And yet the history of both
populations was decided much earlier in evolution.
p. 10 Research
Winds and
ecosystems
W
© IRD / F.Boyer
© MNHN / IRD / A.Froment
obile phone operators are
no longer the only ones
with a vested interest in network
quality. Scientists, too, are now
paying close attention, extracting valuable rainfall information
from data on electromagnetic
signal power. This will be of use
in a variety of domains including
climate, agriculture, food safety,
water resource management,
water services and drought/
flood warnings. The potential is
huge, given that mobile networks
cover 20% of the earth’s land
mass, i.e. 90% of the world’s
population. In cities, in particular, there is a very high network
density. Developed by a team of
researchers, this approach will
produce very precise rainfall
maps for areas with increased risk
of flooding.
The paediatric hiv
issue
p. 4 Partners
On the trail of the dugong
W
p. 11 Developpment
The GAMA success story
T
© DR
© C. Grondin
© wikipedia
ith a mask and snorkel
in the New Caledonian
lagoon, a lucky diver may encounter an animal that has fascinated
for millennia. The dugong is—
among others—at the origin of the
Homer sirens legend. And beyond
the myth, the dugong remains
mysterious for scientists. Tracking
is however crucial in order to better understand this endangered animal. Little by little, researchers are uncovering their secrets. The ird has worked for three years alongside the French
marine protected areas agency, environmental agents for the archipelago
provinces, the wwf (a ngo ) and the Opération Cétacés association as part of a
dugong action plan in New Caledonia.
p. 5 Partnersr
elonging to the same group of
viruses as dengue and chikungunya, a newcomer named Zika is causing quite a stir. All the more so since
it contaminated 55,000 people in
Polynesia at the end of 2013. In
light of this recent event, a FrancoGabonese research team has taken a
second look at blood samples taken
in 2007 during a dengue and chikungunya epidemic in Libreville, Gabon. It
was thus deduced that many patients
had actually been struck by Zika.
This is the first time that a Zika fever
epidemic has been highlighted in Africa, and in an urban area at that. Scientists are now pondering the question
of whether this is a virulent imported
strain or African pathogens until now
unnoticed.
here is no accounting for taste as
the old saying goes. And Peruvians,
the world’s primary anchovy fishermen,
prefer to eat chicken. They capture an
annual six million tonnes of this little
pelagic fish in the rich, fish-bearing
waters of the Humboldt Current, but they consume no more than 100,000
tonnes. This reticence is hugely paradoxical given that anchovies are both
abundant and cheap, and sections of the country, particularly children living
inland, suffer from dietary deficiencies linked to a lack of protein. IRD researchers and their partners, including IMARPE, are leading a programme to
analyse the situation in the anchovy chain, from the marine ecosystem to the
consumer’s plate. This work forms part of a wider programme on the sustainability of the fisheries sector.
p. 7 Research
Termites: sometimes beneficial, sometimes harmful,
always fascinating
T
hey do not only eat away at
structures! Termites, which form
fascinating communities and build
(in some cases) impressive ‘cathedrals’, are also excellent soil
engineers. This is in spite of the
minority causing damage to buildings and crops.
© Agence régionale de santé de la Guadeloupe
B
T
© IRD / L. Joseph
Africa also struck by Zika
© IRD - Angel Avadi
The anchovy and chicken
paradox
P. 2 News
ind plays a key role
in the development
of ecosystems, impacting soil erosion, larval
dispersal in the ocean
and redistribution of water on earth. W ith local
harmattan and westerly
winds in New Caledonia
and inter national trade
winds and monsoon winds, its influence is complex. Understanding
is crucial, as wind is now combining with human activity to threaten
agriculture and fishing.
he simulation and modelling
platform, christened Gama and
developed by i r d i t technicians,
offers solutions to the main problems found in souther n countries. In just a few years, it has
built an impressive community of
users with a variety of backgrounds. This software has been designed to
allow scientists and decision-makers to build and run complex, social or
natural system models, and to predict their development as a result of
diverse changes and events. Specialists were initially seeking to accumulate all i t developments made during institute research programmes, and
to prevent them from being lost following culmination of the scientific
work. They therefore developed generic software, supported by a series
of specialised tools including a dedicated modelling language. Other
i t technicians from French and Vietnamese i r d partner university teams
also lent a hand. And seven years later, GAMA has achieved significant
maturity and renown in the generally specialised niche of simulation,
with some 2000 downloads, forums and a library of more than 100
sample models.
p. 15 Planet
The sterile insect
technique
A
ccording
to
laboratory
tests in semi-controlled
conditions, the release of sterile males would lead to a 90 to
95% reduction in populations
of the Aedes albopictus mosquito, responsible for the transmission of vector-borne diseases
such as chikungunya on the island of Reunion. After successfully overcoming the technological constraints inhibiting the
mass production of non-fertile
insects during an initial phase
conducted between 2009 and
2014, it is now time for ird
researchers and their partners
to lead a larger study. Until now
restricted to observations of mosquitoes in cages, experiments are to begin
on larger areas of between 10 and 30 hectares.
Consult the articles in full on the IRD Internet site: http://www.ird.fr
© Pedaids / J. Hrusa
Madagascar:
metapopulations
of rats and plague
p. 8 y 9 Research
© IRD / J-M. Duplantier
© IRD / F. Cazenave
p. 3 News
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