Inside Africa. ALS/MND may occur earlier in Africa and be more common in men. Image: Fêtes des Masques à Kiri, Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, Guillaume Colin & Pauline Penot, Flickr.
Nearly 20% of people with ALS in the US live at least 5 years after being diagnosed. But in Africa, according to a recent analysis, people show the first signs of ALS earlier, are diagnosed later and die more quickly from the disease.
A group of neurologists and epidemiologists led by Université de Limoges’ Philippe Couratier MD hopes to change that by identifying people with ALS/MND throughout Africa and studying their disease. The multinational, longitudinal study, called TROPALS, aims in part, to identify key prognostic factors that enable physicians to better manage the disease.
The collaboration is one of a growing number of partnerships that hopes to better understand, recognize and treat complex genetic diseases in Africa.
ALS Today’s Michelle Pflumm PhD caught up with participating neurologist Athanase Millogo MD of Burkina Faso at a networking meeting at the NIH’s Fogarty International Center in Maryland to learn more about TROPALS and its potential impact on people with ALS/MND in Africa going forward.
To find out more about the challenges of treating ALS/MND in Africa, read ALS, Circle in the Sand. To learn about efforts to identify the genetic and environmental contributors of complex genetic diseases in Africa, check out NIH and Wellcome Trust’s H3Africa.