Zoonotic Infections News

The choice of artemisinin-based combination treatments for malaria can influence parasite genetics and drug sensitivity, according to results of a recent study published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Staying overnight in insulated “signature” cabins at Yosemite National Park was significantly linked to infection with hantavirus during the 2012 outbreak, researchers have found.

There have been significant reductions in malaria transmission in endemic countries in Africa, but 57% of the population still lives in areas with a moderate or high risk for malaria transmission, researchers reported in The Lancet.

Xenodiagnosis to detect Borrelia burgdorferi in humans was safe and well tolerated in the first human study of the procedure, according to researchers at Tufts University.

A research team from the University of British Columbia discovered for the first time an infectious form of Toxoplasma gondii in western Arctic Beluga, which may have serious public health consequences for indigenous hunters and consumers of Beluga whale meat. They also identified a new species of Sarcocystis parasites, which until recently had been held at bay by Arctic ice.

A new temperate phage isolated from Bacillus anthracis, vB_BanS-Tsamsa, features a large and unique genome and demonstrates lytic activity that may be useful in anthrax biocontrol, according to results of a recent study.

The Yersinia pestis strain responsible for the Plague of Justinian between A.D. 541 and 543 was of a different lineage than the strain that caused the Black Death 800 years later, with both plagues transmitted zoonotically from rodents, a recent genomic analysis has found.

Swine farmers and their families should be targeted for education about Japanese encephalitis, and widespread immunization of pigs and humans is needed to control disease spread, according to recent research from Nepal.

Susceptibility to Lyme disease is related to environmental and behavioral factors, with protective clothing identified as the most effective means of reducing exposure, recent study data suggest.

A patient who developed hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis and later died was found to have dengue virus infection on a postmortem bone marrow biopsy, CDC investigators reported in MMWR.