Zoonotic Infections News

A school-based malaria screening and treatment program provided no health benefits for children living in an area of low to moderate malaria transmission, according to new study results. The program also appeared to have a negative effect on some schoolchildren’s academic performance.

There were 148 cases of Guinea worm disease reported worldwide in 2013, a reduction of 73% compared with the 542 cases in 2012, according to data released by The Carter Center.

Interactions between a recently-discovered protein specific to the malaria species Plasmodium falciparum, reticulocyte-binding protein homolog 5, and the erythrocyte cell surface receptor, basigin, may explain why this specific malaria strain infects only humans.

Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, coronavirus was confirmed in three camels belonging to a herd that was linked to two human cases of infection in Qatar. The evidence was recently published in Lancet Infectious Diseases.

The CDC has received reports of chikungunya virus among residents of the French side of St. Martin, the first time the disease has been reported among non-travelers in the Western Hemisphere.

From November 2012 to July 2013, there were three occasions of cardiac deaths associated with Lyme carditis, the CDC reported in MMWR.

Health officials from Qatar and the Netherlands have identified Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, coronavirus in a herd of camels linked to two cases of human infection with the virus, according to WHO.

From 2001 to 2010, there were 1,208 cases of tularemia reported to the CDC via the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System, according to an MMWR report.

A commercial DNA microarray assay successfully identified different species of Chlamydiaceae responsible for trachoma in Nepalese patients, according to study results recently published in Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Researchers have identified a wide range of host exposure to mosquito vectors in an area affected by human encroachment in East Africa, suggesting an increased risk for the spread infectious diseases.