Weekly epidemiological record / Relevé épidémiologique hebdomadaire
22 SEPTEMBER 2017, 92th YEAR / 22 SEPTEMBRE 2017, 92e ANNÉE
No 38, 2017, 92, 557–572
There are 4 main forms of the disease: visceral leishmaniasis (VL, also known as kala-azar); post-kala-azar dermal leishmania...sis (PKDL); cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL); and mucocutaneous leishmaniasis (MCL). While cutaneous leishmaniasis is the most common form of the disease, visceral leishmaniasis is the most serious and can be fatal if untreated. Additionally, leishmaniasis can be classified as anthroponotic or zoonotic depending on whether the natural reservoir of the parasite is human or animal.
This report updates global epidemiological information on VL and CL to 2015, based on the main indicators published in the GHO, as of 1st September 2017.
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This report, published in conjunction with a summary overview of results of rounds 1–8, is the eighth and final report in a series of laboratory-based evaluations of rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for malaria. It provides a comparative measure of their performance in a standardized way to distingu...ish between well and poorly performing tests.
These results constitute the laboratory evaluation component of the WHO prequalification process for malaria RDTs and inform the current WHO procurement recommendations. In round 8, 35 RDTs from 17 manufacturers were assessed. For the first time the evaluation included an assessment of product performance against a panel of P. falciparum parasites with pfhrp2/3 gene deletions and therefore not expressing HRP2.
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A companion to the Child Friendly Schools Manual
WASH in Schools aims to improve the health and learning performance of school-aged children – and, by extension, that of their families – by reducing the incidence of water and sanitation-related diseases. Every child friendly school r...equires appropriate WASH initiatives that keep the school environment clean and free of smells and inhibit the transmission of harmful bacteria, viruses and parasites.
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Review of International, Regional and National Policies and Legal Frameworks that Promote Migrants and Mobile Populations' Access to Health and Malaria Services in the Greater Mekong Subregion (Cambodia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam)
Migrants and mobile popul...ations face many obstacles in accessing equitable essential health care services due to factors such as living and working conditions, education level, gender, irregular migration status, language and cultural barriers, anti-migrant sentiments, and lack of migrant-inclusive health policies among others. Despite significant progress having been made in the context of malaria control in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), human movements can impact malaria transmission patterns and potentially introduce drug-resistant parasites. This legal framework review therefore serves as a guidance document on approaches to address malaria and malaria elimination for migrant and mobile populations (MMPs) in five countries of the GMS.
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Lymphatic filariasis is a vector-borne neglected tropical disease that causes damage of the lymphatic system and can lead to lymphoedema (elephantiasis) and hydrocele in infected individuals. The global baseline estimate of persons affected by lymphatic filariasis is 25 million men with hydrocele an...d over 15 million people with lymphoedema. At least 36 million persons remain with these chronic disease manifestations. The disease is endemic in 72 countries. In 2016, an estimated total population of 856 million were living in areas with ongoing transmission of the causative filarial parasites and requiring mass drug administration (MDA). Lymphatic filariasis disfigures and disables, and often leads to stigmatization and poverty. Hundreds of millions of dollars are lost annually due to reduced productivity of affected patients. WHO has ranked the disease as one of the world’s leading causes of permanent and long-term disability.
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The increasing global trend of Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has gradually emerged as a major public health challenge for the entire world. AMR has spread to almost all countries and regions, including Pakistan owing to the “misuse and overuse” of Antimicrobials, contributing to the increasing ...burden of infections due to resistant bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi, while limiting the treatment options for managing such infections.
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Antimicrobial resistance is one of the most important threats to the health worldwide. Antimicrobial resistance or drug resistance is the reduction of the pharmaceutical effects of a drug against a disease or reduction of its effectiveness in improving the clinical signs of a disease. Antimicrobial ...resistance occurs naturally but misuse of antibiotics in human and animals significantly accelerates the process of developing antimicrobial resistance. In fact, antimicrobial resistance refers to the resistance of a microorganism to one or more antimicrobial drugs which had been previously sensitive to these drugs. Antimicrobial resistance can occur in a wide variety of pathogens including bacteria, parasites, viruses, fungi, and cancer cells and may threaten the life of every person, in every age, and in every country
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Published: November 24, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000938
Climate change is expected to have complex effects on infectious diseases, causing some to increase, others to decrease, and many to shift their distributions. There have been several important advances in understanding the ...role of climate and climate change on wildlife and human infectious disease dynamics over the past several years. This essay examines 3 major areas of advancement, which include improvements to mechanistic disease models, investigations into the importance of climate variability to disease dynamics, and understanding the consequences of thermal mismatches between host and parasites. Applying the new information derived from these advances to climate–disease models and addressing the pressing knowledge gaps that we identify should improve the capacity to predict how climate change will affect disease risk for both wildlife and humans.
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The Lancet October 25, 2022DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(22)01540-9
As climate change’s impacts continue to accrue, countries are persistently making wrong choices that are harming human health.
A desperate global thirst for fossil fuels is worsening climate change, leading to more extr...eme weather events that have hit every continent, led to thousands of deaths, and caused $250+ billion in damage in 2021.
• People 65+ and children <1 experienced 3.7 billion more heatwave days in 2021 than the annual average from 1986–2005.
• Heat-related deaths shot up 68% from 2000–2004 to 2017–2021.
• Climate change is abetting infectious disease transmission, warming coastal waters and leading to the spread of Vibrio bacteria like the one that causes cholera, and expanding the reach of the malaria parasite.
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The Global Programme to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (LF) is using mass drug administration (MDA) of antifilarial medications to treat filarial infections, prevent disease and interrupt transmission. Almost 500 million people receive these medications each year. Clinical trials have recently shown... that a single dose of a triple-drug combination comprised of ivermectin, diethylcarbamazine and albendazole (IDA) is dramatically superior to widely used two-drug combinations for clearing larval filarial parasites from the blood of infected persons. A large mul-
ticenter community study showed that IDA was well-tolerated when it was provided as MDA. IDA was rapidly advanced from clinical trial to policy and implementation; it has the potential to accelerate LF elimination in many endemic countries.
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Carlos Chagas discovered American trypanosomiasis, also named Chagas disease (CD) in his honor, just over a century ago. He described the clinical aspects of the disease, characterized by its etiological agent (Trypanosoma cruzi) and identified its insect vector. Initially, CD occurred only in Latin... America and was considered a silent and poorly visible disease. More recently, CD became a neglected worldwide disease with a high morbimortality rate and substantial social impact, emerging as a significant public health threat. In this context, it is crucial to better understand better the epidemiological scenarios of CD and its transmission dynamics, involving people infected and at risk of infection, diversity of the parasite, vector species, and T. cruzi reservoirs. Although efforts have been made by endemic and non-endemic countries to control, treat, and interrupt disease transmission, the cure or complete eradication of CD are still topics of great concern and require global attention. Considering the current scenario of CD, also affecting non-endemic places such as Canada, USA, Europe, Australia, and Japan, in this review we aim to describe the spread of CD cases worldwide since its discovery until it has become a global public health concern.
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Pathogens . 2021 Nov 16;10(11):1493.doi: 10.3390/pathogens10111493
.Chronic manifestations of Chagas disease present as disabling and life-threatening condi-tions affecting mainly the cardiovascular and gastrointestinal systems. Although meaningful research has outlined the different molecular mech...anisms underlying Trypanosoma cruzi’s infection and the host-parasite interactions that follow, prompt diagnosis and treatment remain a challenge, particu-larly in developing countries and also in those where the disease is considered non-endemic. This review intends to present an up-to-date review of the parasite’s life cycle, genetic diversity, virulence factors, and infective mechanisms, as well as the epidemiology, clinical presentation, diagnosis, and treatment options of the main chronic complications of Chagas disease.
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Over 6 million people worldwide are infected with Trypanosoma cruzi, the protozoan that causes Chagas disease. Endemic in 21 Latin American countries, the disease can be transmitted by vector insects called triatomines — also known as “kissing bugs” —, foods or beverages contaminated with th...e parasite, blood transfusions, organ transplants, or congenitally during pregnancy or delivery.
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Chagas disease is found mainly in endemic areas of 21 continental Latin American countries. The most common way people are infected with Chagas is through the blood-sucking triatomine bugs, also known as ‘kissing bugs’ (or vinchuca, barbeiro, pito, chinche, chipo in different Latin American coun...tries). The bugs typically live in wall or roof cracks of poorly constructed homes made of materials such as mud, straw and palm thatch. They come out at night to feed on people’s blood while they’re sleeping, then defecate close to the bite. Their faeces contain the parasite, which can then enter the person’s body when they inadvertently smear the bug’s waste into the bite or another skin break, the eyes or the mouth.
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More countries eliminate human African trypanosomiasis as a public health problem: Benin and Uganda (gambiense form) and Rwanda (rhodesiense form)
Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), or sleeping sickness, transmitted by tsetse flies in sub-Saharan Africa, is a life-threatening disease that afflict...s poor rural populations. It is caused by trypanosome parasites of 2 subspecies: Trypanosoma brucei gambiense in West and Central Africa, and T. b. rhodesiense in East Africa.
HAT transmission can be reduced and interrupted by deploying and maintaining capacities for testing people at risk in order to detect and treat cases, and by controlling tsetse populations that are in contact with humans.
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Gambiense human African trypanosomiasis is a deadly infectious disease affecting West and Central Africa, South Sudan and Uganda, and transmitted between humans by tsetse flies. The disease has caused several major epidemics, the latest one in the 1990s. Thanks to recent innovations such as rapid di...agnostic tests for population screening, a single-dose oral treatment and a highly efficient vector control strategy, interruption of transmission of the causative parasite is now within reach. If indeed gHAT has an exclusively human reservoir, this could even result in eradication of the disease. Even if there were an animal reservoir, on the basis of epidemiological data, it plays a limited role. Maintaining adequate postelimination surveillance in known historic foci, using the newly developed tools, should be sufficient to prevent any future resurgence.
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Today is World Chagas Disease Day. This year’s theme is Finding and reporting every case to defeat Chagas disease.
Despite progress, the global case detection rate for Chagas disease is low (estimated to be around 10%), posing a substantial barrier to accessing treatment and care and in prevent...ing transmission.
Often termed as a “silent and silenced disease”, many people with Trypanosoma cruzi infection (the parasite that causes the disease) develop no symptoms or unspecific mild symptoms. Moreover, many countries with cases lack systems to track the number of affected people and active transmission routes.
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La Stratégie de riposte face à la résistance aux antipaludiques en Afrique est un document technique de sensibilisation qui se fonde sur les bases factuelles les plus solides dont on dispose et vise à réduire au maximum la menace et l’impact de la résistance aux antipaludiques de Plasmodium ...falciparum en Afrique. Elle a pour objectifs i) d’améliorer la détection de la résistance et d’assurer une riposte en temps utile ; ii) de retarder l’émergence de la résistance à l’artémisinine et aux médicaments associés utilisés dans les combinaisons thérapeutiques à base d’artémisinine (CTA) ; et iii) de freiner la sélection et la propagation des parasites résistants là où une pharmacorésistance est confirmée. Si la Stratégie cible l’Afrique, il convient de noter que la
menace de la résistance aux antipaludiques concerne tous les pays d’endémie palustre et que les interventions proposées dans le présent document sont applicables dans d’autres régions géographiques à condition d’être adaptées aux spécificités locales.
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In 2012, the World Health Organisation (WHO) set out a roadmap for the control, elimination, or eradication of 17 neglected tropical diseases by 2020. Many were skeptical about the achievability of such goals. Now, still two years away from that end point, good news is emerging for gambiense human A...frican trypanosomiasis (HAT), or sleeping sickness, caused by the tsetse-fly−transmitted protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei gambiense in West and Central Africa. The Rhodesiense form of the disease is being pursued under a separate programme.
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Human schistosomiasis is caused mainly by 3 schistosome species: Schistosoma haematobium, S. mansoni and S. japonicum. S. guineensis, S. intercalatum and S. mekongi have a highly localized distribution in Central Africa and along the Mekong River in South-East Asia, respectively. Soil-transmitted h...elminthiases (STH) are infections caused by 4 parasite species: Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura, Ancylostoma duodenale and Necator americanus. The 2 latter species are indistinguishable microscopically and are usually reported together as “hookworms”. Schistosomiasis and STH are neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and are transmitted mainly in areas with poor access to clean water and sanitation. The presence of an intermediate snail host in water is essential to allow Schistosoma to complete their life cycle. Schistosomiasis and STH can cause significant morbidity, including anaemia, nutritional disturbances and, in the case of schistosomiasis, granuloma, organ pathology and cancer, and an increased risk of acquisition of HIV. In women, urogenital schistosomiasis may cause vaginal bleeding, pain during sexual intercourse and nodules in the vulva, now described as female genital schistosomiasis. Groups at risk for STH and schistosomiasis are those in need of micronutrients: preschool-aged children (pre-SAC, 1–4 years of age), school-aged children (SAC, 5–14 years), women of reproductive age (WRA) and, in addition for schistosomiasis adult and entire communities in high-risk areas.
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