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11.08.2008
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10.08.2008
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Articles requiring subscription
Pre-departure and Post-arrival Management of P. falciparum Malaria in Refugees Relocating from Sub-Saharan Africa to the United States [Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 79(2), 2008, pp. 141-146] — (English)
In response to increasing numbers of refugees originating in sub-Saharan Africa guidelines for the management of malaria in refugees migrating to the United States have been broadened and updated. The guidelines are based on available evidence-based literature and recent public health experience. These guidelines were critically reviewed, assessed, and approved by multiple National and State entities as well as outside experts. These consensus guidelines recommend that sub-Saharan African refugees relocating to the United States receive presumptive treatment of P. falciparum malaria before departure or during the domestic refugee medical screening after arrival. Presumptive therapy is not currently recommended for either non-falciparum malaria or for refugees relocating from areas outside sub-Saharan Africa...
Relationship Between Exposure, Clinical Malaria, and Age in an Area of Changing Transmission Intensity [Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 79(2), 2008, pp. 185-191] — (English)
We reconstructed 16 years (1991–2006) of pediatric hospital surveillance data and infection prevalence surveys from a circumscribed geographic area on the Kenyan coast. The incidence of clinical malaria remained high, despite sustained reductions in exposure to infection. However, the age group experiencing the clinical attacks of malaria increased steadily as exposure declined and may precede changes in the number of episodes in an area with declining transmission...
Microscopy Underestimates the Frequency of Plasmodium Falciparum Infection in Symptomatic Individuals in a Low Transmission Highland Area [Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 79(2), 2008, pp. 173-177] — (English)
In an area with unstable malaria transmission, detection of Plasmodium falciparum infection in 379 symptomatic individuals was assessed by microscopy and three polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methodologies. P. falciparum infection was detected in 25% of patients by microscopy, 37% by nested PCR, 41% by merozoite surface protein-2 (MSP-2) PCR, and 45% by a ligase detection reaction-fluorescent microsphere assay (LDR-FMA)...
Effects of Plasmodium falciparum Mixed Infections on In Vitro Antimalarial Drug Tests and Genotyping [Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 79(2), 2008, pp. 178-184] — (English)
We studied the effects of mixed parasite populations containing various ratios of parasites resistant and sensitive to chloroquine on outcomes of drug tests and how ratios of parasite mixtures correlated with genotypes using polymerase chain reaction–based methods. Our results show that a mixture with a resistant population as low as 10% could greatly impact a drug test outcome. None of the genotyping methods could reliably detect minor DNA alleles at 10%. Mixed infection presents a serious problem for drug tests, and genotyping using microsatellite or other methods may not reliably reflect true ratios of alleles...
Fièvres et paludisme chez les enfants de 0 à 5 ans au Bénin : avons-nous de vraies statistiques ? [Cahiers d'études et de recherches francophones / Santé] — (French)
La prise en charge adéquate d’une fièvre et du paludisme, souvent liés chez l’enfant, passe par une implication des perceptions et représentations des parents, qui permettrait de mieux connaître la vraie participation du paludisme aux épisodes fébriles à partir d’études dans deux villages et d’y opposer des stratégies conséquentes...
Efficacité de l’artéméther dans le traitement du paludisme simple à Plasmodium falciparum chez l’enfant de 6 à 60 mois à Bangui (Centrafrique) [Cahiers d'études et de recherches francophones / Santé] — (French)
L’artéméther était bien toléré. Cette molécule constitue une alternative efficace et sûre pour le traitement du paludisme simple à P. falciparum de l’enfant en RCA...
Sensibilité in vitro de P. falciparum à la quinine, l’artésunate et la chloroquine à Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire) [Cahiers d'études et de recherches francophones / Santé] — (French)
Le paludisme constitue en Côte d’Ivoire un grave problème de santé publique. La prise en charge thérapeutique de la maladie se heurte à la résistance du parasite à la plupart des antipaludiques, en particulier dans le sud du pays. Aujourd’hui, la mise en place d’un système de surveillance régulière de la sensibilité de Plasmodium falciparum s’impose à l’ensemble des antipaludiques mais surtout aux dérivés de l’artémisinine...
Influenza virosomes: a flu jab for malaria? [Trends in Parasitology, 2008 Aug 4] — (English)
The major attractions of vaccines based on viral carriers (vectors) include their immunogenicity without adjuvant and the relative simplicity of their associated production processes in comparison with recombinant protein-based approaches. Two influenza virosomal vaccines – for influenza and hepatitis A – are registered for human use, and the virosome platform is being evaluated as the carrier for a Plasmodium falciparum vaccine that targets both the exo-erythrocytic and erythrocytic stages. Although safe and immunogenic, the first such virosome-based malaria vaccine showed no protection in a Phase IIa clinical trial. Nevertheless, the established safety profile of virosomes and their flexibility with regard to antigen delivery – allowing for antibody induction via the conjugation of peptides and T-cell induction via encapsulation – indicate that they warrant further exploration...
Pregnancy-Associated Malaria Affects Toll-Like Receptor Ligand-Induced Cytokine Responses in Cord Blood [The Journal of Infectious Diseases 2008;198:000–000 ] — (English)
P. falciparum infection history during pregnancy appears to have a pronounced effect on neonatal innate immune responses. The observed effects may have profound implications for the outcome of newly encountered infections in early life...
Accumulation of CVIET Pfcrt allele of Plasmodium falciparum in placenta of pregnant women living in an urban area of Dakar, Senegal [Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, doi:10.1093/jac/dkn299] — (English)
Of 692 women recruited at delivery, 72 had placental malaria. Two Pfcrt exon 2 genotypes were found, and 86% of the placentas had monoallelelic CVIET infection compared with 39% that had peripheral blood infection. Mixed parasite populations of CVIET/CVMNK occurred in 53% of the peripheral blood samples but only in 7% of the infected placentas. This selection of CVIET in placenta was not related to a decreased polymorphism of the parasites, as a large diversity of MSA1 and MSA2 was found in both placenta and venous blood. This diversity confirms that a multiplicity of circulation isolates can occur at low parasite transmission. msp1 and msp2 genotyping revealed mostly distinct populations of parasites in venous and placental blood...
In Africa, One in Four Survivors of Cerebral Malaria Have Long-term Deficits [Neurology Today:Volume 8(14)17 July 2008p 30] — (English)
At two-year follow-up testing, 26.3 percent of children with cerebral malaria had cognitive deficits in one or more areas compared with 12.5 percent of children who had had uncomplicated malaria and 7.6 percent of asymptomatic children in the community, said Michael J. Boivin, MD, professor of neurology at Michigan State University, East Lansing. He described the findings at the AAN annual meeting here in April...
Evolutionary biology: parasite, know thyself [Curr Biol. 2008 Aug 5;18(15):R655-7] — (English)
Studies of sex allocation provide some of the best evidence for Darwinian adaptation in nature. A new study of malaria parasites provides striking support for this cornerstone of evolutionary biology, with important implications for both evolutionary and medical biology...
Malaria and bacterial sepsis: Similar mechanisms of endothelial apoptosis and its prevention in vitro [Critical Care Medicine, 2008 Aug 1] — (English)
These in vitro results show how neutrophils can contribute to endothelial damage in malaria and in sepsis, both by their secretory products and by binding to intercellular adhesion molecule-1 on endothelial cells. The presence of similar pathomechanisms suggests that similar antiapoptotic strategies may offer potential benefit in malaria and in sepsis...
Mosquitocidal vaccines: a neglected addition to malaria and dengue control strategies [Trends Parasitol. 2008 Aug 2] — (English)
The transmission of vector-borne diseases is dependent upon the ability of the vector to survive for longer than the period of development of the pathogen within the vector. One means of reducing mosquito lifespan, and thereby reducing their capacity to transmit diseases, is to target mosquitoes with vaccines. Here, the principle behind mosquitocidal vaccines is described, their potential impact in malaria and dengue control is modeled and the current research that could make these vaccines a reality is reviewed. Mosquito genome data, combined with modern molecular techniques, can be exploited to overcome the limited advances in this field. Given the large potential benefit to vector-borne disease control, research into the development of mosquitocidal vaccines deserves a high profile...
Detection of the Dihydrofolate Reductase–164L Mutation in Plasmodium falciparum Infections from Malawi by Heteroduplex Tracking Assay [Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 78(6), 2008, pp. 892-894] — (English)
Standard polymerase chain reaction methods often cannot detect drug-resistance mutations in Plasmodium falciparum infections if the mutation is present in 20% of the parasites. A heteroduplex tracking assay was developed that can detect dihydrofolate reductase 164-L mutations in variants representing 1% of the parasites in an individual host. Using this assay, we confirmed the presence of the mutation in P. falciparum infections in Malawi...
Plasmodium falciparum-free merozoites and infected RBCs distinctly affect soluble CD40 ligand-mediated maturation of immature monocyte-derived dendritic cells [J Leukoc Biol. 2008 Jul;84(1):244-54] — (English)
Free plasmodium merozoites released from the parasitized hepatocytes and erythrocytes represent a transitory, extracellular stage in its mammalian host. In this study, we compared the effect of Plasmodium falciparum-free merozoites with infected RBCs (iRBCs) on the maturation of human monocyte-derived dendritic cells (DCs) in vitro...
The health impact of polyparasitism in humans: are we under-estimating the burden of parasitic diseases? [Parasitology (2008), 135:783-794] — (English)
Parasitic infections are widespread throughout the tropics and sub-tropics, and infection with multiple parasite species is the norm rather than the exception. Despite the ubiquity of polyparasitism, its public health significance has been inadequately studied. Here we review available studies investigating the nutritional and pathological consequences of multiple infections with Plasmodium and helminth infection and, in doing so, encourage a reassessment of the disease burden caused by polyparasitism. The available evidence is conspicuously sparse but is suggestive that multiple human parasite species may have an additive and/or multiplicative impact on nutrition and organ pathology. Existing studies suffer from a number of methodological limitations and adequately designed studies are clearly necessary. Current methods of estimating the potential global morbidity due to parasitic diseases underestimate the health impact of polyparasitism, and possible reasons for this are presented. As international strategies to control multiple parasite species are rolled-out, there is a number of options to investigate the complexity of polyparasitism, and it is hoped that that the parasitological resarch community will grasp the opportunity to understand better the health of polyparasitism in humans...
Prepared in cooperation with European Commission HIV/AIDS in South Africa.
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