Medical Parasitology

Haemonchosis is a worldwide helminthic disease affecting ruminants. The anthelminthic resistance has become raised. Medicinal plants are safely used as synthetic anthelmintics. Currently, the efficacy of black pepper essential oil (BPO) and tea tree oil (TTO) were in vitro evaluated against Haemonchus contortus adults, eggs and larvae at concentrations of 1.25, 2.5 and 5 mg/ml in addition to the commercially used albendazole at a concentration of 10 μg/ml. Oils were used in both normal and nanoparticles-loaded forms...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is still considered to be an uncontrolled endemic disease that spreads in many countries. The current study aimed to determine intra-species relationships of L. major using ITS2 sequencing. METHODS: The study was conducted from the beginning of March to the end of November 2022. All medical information regarding CL was collected from patients of Thi-Qar province who attended the Dermatology Department of Al-Hussein Teaching Hospital in Nasiriyah city...

PURPOSE: During cystic echinococcosis surgery, the use of scolicidal agents such as hypertonic saline (20%) aims to reduce the risk of infection recurrence, but most of the used agents are associated with undesirable side effects. Therefore, the use of natural scolicidal agents such as medicinal plant extracts could reduce these medical issues. The present study aimed to compare in vitro the scolicidal activity between two extracts of the medicinal plant Myrtus communis from Algeria against Echinococcus granulosus sensu lato protoscoleces...

The current study provides data on the composition of the dipteran and coleopteran fauna attracted to three different animal baits (chicken stomach, beef liver, fish) in the urban ecosystem of Athens, Greece. An additional objective was to examine the effect of bait choice by the collected taxa. Three trap locations were established within the Agricultural University of Athens. At each location two different types of baited traps were used to capture and record the local dipteran and coleopteran biodiversity...

UNLABELLED: Over a 6-month span, three patients under 5 years old with cutaneous leishmaniasis presented to the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Clinic at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center/Children's Health Dallas. None had traveled outside of northern Texas/southern Oklahoma; all had Leishmania mexicana infections confirmed by PCR. We provide case descriptions and images to increase the awareness of this disease among United States (US) physicians and scientists. Two patients responded to fluconazole, but the youngest required topical paromomycin...

PURPOSE: Iran is among the high-risk leishmaniasis regions in the world. WHO recommends the use of GIS as an ideal tool for healthcare authorities to predict the evolution of a disease, delimit the risk of outbreaks and identify critical areas. The aim of this research is to find the association between the main species of Leishmania (L. major, L. tropica, L. infantum) dispersion and climatic variables in Iran. METHODS: All molecular-based reports of leishmaniasis from Iran between 1999 and 2021 were gathered from reliable medical sources...

INTRODUCTION: Argulus spp. infestation is a significant challenge for aquaculture, currently, there are no approved medications available to efficiently manage this parasite. Consequently, mechanical removal of parasites using forceps and natural substances like herbs are being explored as alternative treatment methods. Pellitorine (PLE) is a naturally occurring compound found in several plant species. It is classified as an alkaloid and belongs to the class of compounds known as amides...

PURPOSE: Myiases are infestations of human and animal tissues by fly larvae. These conditions are widespread in tropical countries and travelers in those areas are at risk of becoming infested. Although Cordylobia anthropophaga (Blanchard & Berenger-Feraud, 1872) is one of the most common myiasis-causing species, few high-quality images and molecular sequences are available for this fly. We present a case of C. anthropophaga infestation in an Italian patient returning from Senegal, with the aim of increasing both visual and molecular data for this species...

BACKGROUND: Leprosy is a highly neglected disease that is considered a serious public health problem in many countries. This illness is characterised by a variety of clinical and histopathological manifestations that are related to the patient immune response. OBJECTIVES: This work aimed evaluate the profile of circulating immune mediators in the plasma from patients classified clinically as paucibacillary (PB), multibacillary (MB), households contacts (HHC), type1 leprosy reaction (T1R), type2 leprosy reaction (T2R) and control individuals without medical history of leprosy (CTL)...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Onychomycosis is a very common cosmopolitan onychopathy. It affects the fingers and toes, which are important organs of function and socialization. They can cause physical and psychological discomfort. In this regard, the present study aimed to assess the impact of onychomycosis on the quality of life of patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This prospective, cross-sectional, observational study was carried out in the parasitology-mycology laboratory of the Avicenne Military Hospital in Marrakesh, Morocco, over 5 months between June and October 2022...

INTRODUCTION: Since its release by OpenAI in November 2022, numerous studies have subjected ChatGPT to various tests to evaluate its performance in medical exams. The objective of this study is to evaluate ChatGPT's accuracy and logical reasoning across all 10 subjects featured in Stage 1 of Senior Professional and Technical Examinations for Medical Doctors (SPTEMD) in Taiwan, with questions that encompass both Chinese and English. METHODS: In this study, we tested ChatGPT-4 to complete SPTEMD Stage 1...

Liver and intestinal flukes (LIF) are important groups of foodborne zoonotic trematodes (FZTs) in Southeast Asia, including Vietnam. Their complex life cycles require specific freshwater snail species as the obligatory first intermediate hosts. In 2019, we conducted a longitudinal study in Yen Bai and Thanh Hoa provinces in North and Central Vietnam, respectively, to investigate the diversity of LIF and their infection prevalence in relation to snail host abundance and environmental factors. Using a combination of morphological and molecular identification techniques, we identified 10 LIF species infecting 11 snail host species...

BACKGROUND: Large language models like ChatGPT have revolutionized the field of natural language processing with their capability to comprehend and generate textual content, showing great potential to play a role in medical education. This study aimed to quantitatively evaluate and comprehensively analysis the performance of ChatGPT on three types of national medical examinations in China, including National Medical Licensing Examination (NMLE), National Pharmacist Licensing Examination (NPLE), and National Nurse Licensing Examination (NNLE)...

BACKGROUND: Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) are the recommended antimalarial drugs for the treatment of uncomplicated malaria. The recent emergence of artemisinin partial resistance (ART-R) in Rwanda, Uganda and Eritrea is of great concern. In Tanzania, a nationwide molecular malaria surveillance in 2021 showed a high prevalence of the Kelch13 (K13) 561H mutation in Plasmodium falciparum from the north-western region, close to the border with Rwanda and Uganda. This study was conducted in 2022 to evaluate the efficacy of artemether-lumefantrine (AL) and artesunate-amodiaquine (ASAQ) for the treatment of uncomplicated falciparum malaria and to confirm the presence of ART-R in Tanzania...

Parasitic worms are pathogens of major medical and veterinary importance. They have evolved highly effective and sophisticated strategies of immune system manipulation, typically involving actively excreted/secreted (E-S) products. These molecules dampen and regulate the host immune responses that would otherwise result in parasite expulsion, thereby enabling the worms to survive in the host for many years, and they can also help prevent the potentially serious tissue damage that the worms can induce. Reflecting these E-S product-associated anti-inflammatory activities, there is also increasing evidence that parasitic worms and their products may serendipitously protect against allergic and autoimmune conditions and in addition, comorbidities of ageing that are associated with inflammatory responses, like type 2 diabetes and obesity...

Background The role of pathogen genotype in determining disease severity and immunopathology has been studied intensively in microbial pathogens including bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and viruses, but is poorly understood in parasitic helminths. The medically important blood fluke Schistosoma mansoni is an excellent model system to study the impact of helminth genetic variation on immunopathology. Our laboratory has demonstrated that laboratory schistosome populations differ in sporocyst growth and cercarial production in the intermediate snail host and worm establishment and fecundity in the vertebrate host...

Cockroaches have been identified as mechanical carriers of pathogens capable of infesting humans. The primary objective of this research was to detect and separate medically significant parasites found within the collected cockroaches. A total of 185 cockroaches were captured. In the laboratory, cockroaches underwent a series of steps. Initially, they were washed in a saturated salt solution and rinsed with 70% alcohol, dried, and subsequently dissected to examine endoparasites. In this study, a transport rate of 29...

BACKGROUND: Skin diseases are usually chronic in nature but not life-threatening. They affect the well-being and pose a threat to the general health of the affected animals. AIM: This study aimed to investigate epidemiological, clinical, and therapeutic aspects of ectoparasitic infestations in dogs in a number of Egyptian governorates. METHODS: Ninety dogs (58 males and 32 females) aged from 1 month to 11 years from 6 Egyptian governorates were clinically examined during the years 2022 and 2023...

The ANESPSAT, a synthetic spilanthol derivative, and its nanoformulation were evaluated against Rhipicephalus microplus and Amblyomma sculptum ticks. ANESPSAT activity was compared with spilanthol and derivatives (ANESPE and others). The compound was synthesized in a gram-scale by a 2-step process, comprising a direct ester amidation and a Horner-Wadsworth- Emmons reaction. The nanoemulsions were produced by coarse homogenization followed by high-energy ultrasonication, in which hydrodynamic diameter, polydispersity index, and zeta potential remained stable...

This study investigated the presence and abundance of Cystoisospora suis oocysts in faecal samples from 131 one- to three-week-old pig litters belonging to eight intensively raised, indoor herds in Spain. Seven herds used preventive anticoccidial toltrazuril treatments administered orally or by intramuscular injection, and one did not use preventive anticoccidial treatments. The diagnosis was performed using two oocyst flotation-concentration methods, Bailenger's method in every herd and the more recent Joachim's method in four herds...