Working together to eliminate cyanide poisoning, konzo, tropical ataxic neuropathy (TAN) and neurolathyrism Cassava Cyanide Diseases & Neurolathyrism Network (ISSN 1838-8817 (Print): ISSN 1838-8825 (Online) Issue Number 31, June 2018 Contents Editorial Editorial ......................................................................... 1 The curse of konzo ....................................................... 2 Grass pea Abstracts from the 7th International Food The konzo-story in Mozambique comparing to Legumes Research Conference in Marrakech/ Morocco neurolathyrism 2018 ................................................................................ 5 Grasspea (Lathyrus sativus L.) –boon or bane?........... 5 In this issue of our Newsletter we have put a Lathyrus diversity: Available resources with relevance to crop improvement ........................................................ 5 shortened version of a very interesting media story Indian perspective on lentil and lathyrus improvement . 6 on the konzo discovery and early history of konzo Advances in Lentil and grasspea improvement in research in Mozambique. The key players in this Bangladesh ................................................................. 6 story are Julie Cliff, Hans Rosling and in a later stage Adaptation of exotic grass pea germplasm for rainfed farming in Central India ................................................ 7 our founder Howard Bradbury, who spent the last 26 Towards development of zero/low β-N-Oxalyl-L-α,β- years of his life searching solutions to stop konzo. diaminopropionic acid (β-ODAP) varieties of grass pea This story is indeed very relevant for researchers (Lathyrus sativus L.) .................................................... 7 working on konzo and/or on neurolathyrism. Like in Breeding low neurotoxin, high yielding grass pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) genotypes for rice based cropping the case of neurolathyrism, konzo researchers first system of Chhattisgarh ................................................ 7 focused on the toxic aspects of the nutrition and only Identifying promising sources of quantitative resistance later found that nutritional deficiencies or imbalance to Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. pisi in grass pea ............ 7 also played a role. A better-balanced nutrition, more CCDNN Coordination: specific a better balance in essential amino acids limits toxicity. Like for neurolathyrism, konzo does not occur along the coastal areas where fish is part of the diet. The same is true in the coastal area of Technologiepark 19 , B-9052 Gent, Belgium Bangladesh and among the Woito tribe in Ethiopia where fish is part of the diet together with grass pea Prof Fernand LAMBEIN, Coordinator but neurolathyrism is absent. Like for neurolathyrism, Phone: +32 484 417 5005 E-mail: [email protected] or konzo affects mainly or exclusively the poorest [email protected] section of the population who only can afford the cheapest food available. Both konzo and Dr. Delphin DIASOLUA NGUDI neurolathyrism should be considered socio- Phone: +32 92 92 80 40 Email: [email protected] or [email protected] economic famine diseases. + Editorial Board: H. Bradbury - Hon. Chairman and In the second part of this newsletter, the abstracts of founder (1926-2016), th presentations at the 7 International Food Legume J.P. Banea, Julie Cliff, Arnaldo Cumbana, Ian Denton, D. Diasolua Ngudi, F. Lambein., N.L.V.Mlingi, Research Conference (IFLRC), organised by Humberto Muquingue, Bala Nambisan, Dulce ICARDA, are presented. Nine contributions out of Nhassico, S.L.N. Rao, D. Tshala-Katumbay 360, or merely 2.5% were on grass pea (Lathyrus Country Contacts: sativus), illustrating the low status of grass pea in Cameroon: E.E. Agbor; food legume research. Nevertheless, at the closing D.R. Congo: JP Banea & J. Nsimire Chabwine; ceremony of this conference, Fernand Lambein Indonesia: A. Hidayat; received a life-time achievement award for his Mozambique: Anabela Zacarias; Nigeria: M.N. Adindu and P.N. Okafor “lifetime support to Lathyrus research”. Website: http://ipbo.vib-ugent.be/projects/ccdn Delphin Diasolua Ngudi 1 The curse of konzo Initial indications favoured a microbial origin for the condition: if not polio, then some other pathogen. Many early case reports described symptoms such On 21 August 1981, Australian physician Julie Cliff as fever, headache, and diarrhoea preceding the received the following message on her telex, a print- onset of paralysis—symptoms consistent with an on-paper precursor to modern text messaging: “Polio infectious disease. Likewise, the clear clustering of outbreak. Memba District. 38 cases. Reflexes cases in small communities and family groups increased.” pointed to person-to-person transmission. After all, The apparently routine message was sent from the Africa hosted many unpleasant and little known Provincial Health Directorate in Nampula, a city in parasites, bacteria, and viruses—such as the newly northern Mozambique. Cliff worked in the emerged Ebola virus, first identified in Sudan and epidemiology department of the Mozambican Zaire in 1976. Ministry of Health in Maputo, at the southern end of But subsequent investigations revealed no obvious the country. Effective vaccines against pathogens. After several days in the field Cliff’s team poliomyelitis—a food and water-borne infectious withdrew to Maputo to regroup and consult with disease that can damage nerves and cause international experts, including those from the World paralysis—had been developed in the 1950s and Health Organization. Telex machines from 1960s, eliminating polio from many industrialized Mozambique to Geneva chattered with criss-crossing countries. However, the disease remained rife hypotheses, while blood samples were hastily throughout sub-Saharan Africa. So the message was despatched to specialist labs overseas, including the unremarkable—except for one thing. In the acute British biological and chemical weapons research phase of polio, tendon reflexes are not increased. centre in Porton Down, England. They are absent. Dr. Cliff arrived in Nampula province shortly The team perused a series of increasingly dusty and dense printed journals and textbooks. They identified afterwards as part of a small Health Ministry two diseases with possible relevance to the investigation team, determined to get to the root of Nampulan outbreak. One disease, called lathyrism, the mystery. Close inspection of affected individuals confirmed the disease was definitely not polio. Yet the produced a very similar clinical picture: upper motor neuron damage leading to increased muscle tone question remained: what else could it be? and paralysis. Lathyrism typically occurred on a Other doctors already at the scene included a young sporadic basis in south Asia, but was also noted medic from Sweden named Hans Rosling, who was among the detainees of Vapniarka, a concentration working in one of the affected areas as a District camp in Romania, during World War II. The other Medical Officer. When first confronted with a line of disease was an obscure neurological disorder named women and children suffering various degrees of Tropical Ataxic Neuropathy, or TAN, first reported in paralysis, he reached for the biggest neurology Jamaica in 1897 but since described in a number of textbook he could find. “Their disease did not exist in other countries scattered across the tropics, including that book,” he later recounted. Lacking other ideas, another East African country, Tanzania. Rosling was soon forced to entertain a disturbing Intriguingly, both diseases were nutritional, rather possibility: biological or chemical warfare. than infectious, in nature. With lathyrism, the illness In the days that followed, no evidence for any kind of was caused by a toxin present in certain legumes— biological or chemical attack emerged. Nevertheless, including the livestock peas that were the sole cases of the mysterious paralysis continued to foodstuff allowed to the unfortunate Jewish internees mount. Each followed a troubling pattern: the disease in Vapniarka. However, none of these legume usually affected women and children, almost species were grown or consumed in northern invariably in rural villages that had already endured Mozambique. The purported cause of TAN was more months of a severe drought. Typically, it would strike vague — even a century after its discovery, the exact quickly, over a matter of days or even hours. cause remains unknown. Still nutritional deficiencies Previously active young mothers and children would have been proposed as possible factors, and experts go to sleep with little inkling of anything amiss, only had long linked it to a food crop widely cultivated in to wake the next morning with various degrees of Mozambique and elsewhere. But the symptoms of muscle stiffness and contractions in the legs, and— TAN—which include blindness, hearing loss, and an less commonly—in the arms, too. Sometimes a bout unsteady gait—bore little resemblance to the of heavy exertion, such as collecting water for the distinctive paralysis the doctors saw in Nampula household from a distant well, seemed to trigger province. symptoms the next day. Affected people would find By the end of September 1981, Cliff’s team—now themselves unable to walk normally or, in the worst expanded to include Dutch botanist Paul Jansen— cases, at all. It was almost as if someone—or was no longer looking for a contagious disease. They something—had tied their legs together with invisible had considered