Via The Times of India: BHU professor to work on Kala-azar remedy. Excerpt:
VARANASI: A professor of Banaras Hindu University (BHU) will collaborate with a Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Australia, scientist to investigate the treatment of visceral Leishmaniasis of VL (Kala- azar) that affects the poor in many states of the country.
"I will collaborate with Dr Christian Engwerda of QIMR's Immunology and Infection Laboratory to study the disease for its effective treatment," said Prof Shyam Sundar of the Department of Medicine, Institute of Medical Schiences, BHU. He told TOI that the work would be funded by the Federal Government's Australia-India Strategic Research Fund.
"There are limited drugs (only three drugs in India) to treat the VL that affects mainly the poor. The main aim of the work to study whether the immunity of the body to fight against the disease can be enhanced," he said adding that since VL was the disease of the poorest class the pharmaceutical industry was not interested in formulating more drugs.
According to him, the disease is spread in entire Bihar, eastern UP, West Bengal and parts of Jharkhand.
"If we get success in our research the treatment time may reduced from 20 days to 1-2 days," he said adding that there were some compounds like IL-10 and GITR in the body, which suppressed the body's immunity.
