2018 June - 34 articles
Schistosomiasis is recognized as a tropical disease of considerable public health importance, but domestic livestock infections due to Schistosoma japonicum, S. bovis, S. mattheei and S. curassoni are often overlooked causes of significant animal mor...
Over the past decade, a significant reduction in the prevalence of schistosomiasis has been achieved, partially explained by the large-scale administration of praziquantel. Yet, the burden of schistosomiasis remains considerable, and factors influenc...
Dengue fever is making a significant comeback globally and its control still depends largely on residents’ actions. Community awareness and education are central to its management; however, programmes have had limited impact, because they are o...
The venom proteome of Siamese Russell’s viper from Taiwan, alongside complementary in vivo lethality neutralization assay and in vitro third-generation antivenomics assessment of the preclinical efficacy of the homologous antivenom manufactured in Ta...
Brucellosis is one of the most common contagious and communicable zoonotic diseases with high rates of morbidity and lifetime sterility. There has been a momentous increase over the recent years in intra/interspecific infection rates, due to poor man...
Few published studies are available describing the prevalence of paediatric strongyloidiasis in endemic areas within Australia. This literature review and exploratory clinical audit presents the first seroprevalence data for paediatric patients in Ce...
Scrub typhus threatens one billion people in the Asia-Pacific area and cases have emerged outside this region. It is caused by infection with any of the multitude of strains of the bacterium Orientia tsutsugamushi. A vaccine that affords heterologous...
Melioidosis is an often fatal infectious disease with a protean clinical spectrum, caused by the environmental bacterial pathogen Burkholderia pseudomallei. Although the disease has been reported from some African countries in the past, the present e...
Melioidosis is an emerging disease in the Americas. This paper reviews confirmed cases, the presence of Burkholderia pseudomallei and the organization of national surveillance policies for melioidosis in South America. Confirmed cases in humans have...
Strongyloidiasis is an infection caused by the helminth, Strongyloides stercoralis. Up to 370 million people are infected with the parasite globally, and it has remained endemic in the Indigenous Australian population for many decades. Strongyloidias...
Lymphatic filariasis (LF) infects an estimated 120 million people worldwide, with a further 856 million considered at risk of infection and requiring preventative chemotherapy. The majority of LF infections are caused by Wuchereria bancrofti, named i...
Epidemiology and clinical features of scabies remain largely unknown in Nigeria’s rural communities. To fill this gap, we performed a cross-sectional study in three rural communities in north central Nigeria. A total of 500 individuals were inc...
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that zoonotic diseases transmitted from animals to humans account for 75 percent of new and emerging infectious diseases. Globally, high-consequence pathogens that impact livestock and have the potential...
Mycobacterium ulcerans is the causative agent of Buruli ulcer, also known in Australia as Daintree ulcer or Bairnsdale ulcer. This destructive skin disease is characterized by extensive and painless necrosis of the skin and soft tissue with the forma...
Since 1998, Nipah virus (NiV) (genus: Henipavirus; family: Paramyxoviridae), an often-fatal and highly virulent zoonotic pathogen, has caused sporadic outbreak events. Fruit bats from the genus Pteropus are the wildlife reservoirs and have a broad di...
Background: The diagnostic performance of the Kato Katz (KK) technique and the point-of-care circulating cathodic antigen (POC-CCA) test in detecting S. mansoni infection in the presence of the human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) infection has rem...
Strongyloides stercoralis has one of the most complex life cycles of the human-infecting nematodes. A common misconception in medical and public health professions is that S. stercoralis in its biology is akin to other intestinal nematodes, such as t...
Although medical students are at risk of contracting and transmitting communicable diseases, previous studies have demonstrated sub-optimal medical student immunity. The objective of this research was to determine the documented immunity of medical s...
Despite the fact that South Asia is predicted to have the highest number of cases worldwide, melioidosis is a little-known entity in South Asian countries. It has never been heard of by the majority of doctors and has as yet failed to gain the attent...
Strongyloidiasis is a helminth infection that remains under-researched despite its ability to cause significant illness. Women and children may be at particular risk of health consequences from this parasite. This systematic literature review aims to...
Murray Valley encephalitis virus (MVEV) is a mosquito-borne virus endemic to Australia and New Guinea. Encephalitis due to MVEV is potentially devastating, and no therapeutic interventions of proven value exist. Prevention relies largely on personal...
This paper describes two phases of a community-directed intervention to address strongyloidiasis in the remote Aboriginal community of Woorabinda in central Queensland, Australia. The first phase provides the narrative of a community-driven ‘tr...
Infection with the larval stage of the cestode, Echinococcus granulosus sensu lato (s.l.), causes hydatid disease (hydatidosis) in a range of hosts, including macropods and other marsupials, cattle, and humans. Wild macropods are an important sylvati...
A 39-year-old Ethiopian HIV-positive man with peripheral T-cell lymphoma developed Strongyloides stercoralis hyperinfection. The patient was initially treated with oral ivermectin for three weeks without response, most likely due to malabsorption bec...
Background: Antivenom is the definitive treatment for venomous snakebites, but is expensive and not available in many rural and poorly developed regions. Timely transportation to facilities that stock and administer antivenom may not be available in...
Migrants living in low incidence countries, including New Zealand (NZ), are disproportionately affected by tuberculosis (TB). This foreign-born group poses important challenges to achieving the national TB elimination targets. Thus, the aim of this s...
Leishmaniasis is a neglected tropical disease caused by the Leishmania parasite and transmitted by the Phlebotominae subfamily of sandflies, which infects humans and other mammals. Clinical manifestations of the disease include cutaneous leishmaniasi...
With the inclusion of snakebite envenoming on the World Health Organization’s list of Neglected Tropical Diseases, an incentive has been established to promote research and development effort in novel snakebite antivenom therapies. Various technologi...
Sub-Saharan Africa as a region accounts for the bulk of the global under-five mortality rate, to which diarrhea is major contributor. Millions of children die from diarrheal diseases each year and those who survive often do so facing suboptimal growt...
The first cases of human melioidosis were described in Vietnam in the 1920s, almost a century ago. It was in Vietnam in the thirties that the saprophytic nature of B. pseudomallei was first recognized. Although a significant number of French and U.S....
Melioidosis is known to occur in Bangladesh, but there are few reports about the condition in the published international literature. We set out to review all known cases of melioidosis in the country to date, using both retrospective and prospective...
A recent modelling study estimated that there are 2800 deaths due to melioidosis in Thailand yearly. The Thailand Melioidosis Network (formed in 2012) has been working closely with the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) to investigate and reduce the bu...
A rapid review was performed to determine (1) the number and causes of reported laboratory-acquired infections (LAI) in the Asia-Pacific region; (2) their significance and threat to the community; (3) the primary risk factors associated with LAIs; (4...
Podoconiosis is an endemic, non-infectious, geochemical and non-filarial inflammatory cause of tropical elephantiasis. The immunology of podoconiosis is not yet expressly understood. In spite of this, co-infection and co-morbidity with the infectious...
