malaria, viral hepatitis

INTRODUCTION: This study determines the incidence of common viral and helminth coinfections with malaria in the tertiary care hospital set up in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The multidimensional research included malaria patients admitted to different hospitals of district Kohat during January and December 2021. Stool samples and blood were assembled from the patients. Giemsa-stained microscopy-positive samples were processed by the immunochromatography technique (ICT) to identify Plasmodium species...

Live-attenuated yellow fever vaccine (YF17D) was developed in the 1930s as the first ever empirically derived human vaccine. Ninety years later, it is still a benchmark for vaccines made today. YF17D triggers a particularly broad and polyfunctional response engaging multiple arms of innate, humoral and cellular immunity. This unique immunogenicity translates into an extraordinary vaccine efficacy and outstanding longevity of protection, possibly by single-dose immunization. More recently, progress in molecular virology and synthetic biology allowed engineering of YF17D as a powerful vector and promising platform for the development of novel recombinant live vaccines, including two licensed vaccines against Japanese encephalitis and dengue, even in paediatric use...

Viral hepatitis-induced acute liver failure (ALF) is a preventable cause for liver-related mortality worldwide. Viruses are the most common cause for ALF in developing nations in contrast to the west, where acetaminophen is largely responsible. Viruses may be hepatotropic or affect the liver secondary to a systemic infection. In tropical countries, infections such as leptospirosis, scrub typhus and malaria can mimic the symptoms of ALF. Differentiating these ALF mimics is crucial because they require etiology-specific therapy...

PURPOSE (BACKGROUND): The presented review is an updating of Iron metabolism in context of normal physiology and pathological phases. Iron is one of the vital elements in humans and associated into proteins as a component of heme (e.g. hemoglobin, myoglobin, cytochromes proteins, myeloperoxidase, nitric oxide synthetases), iron sulfur clusters (e.g. respiratory complexes I-III, coenzyme Q10, mitochondrial aconitase, DNA primase), or other functional groups (e.g. hypoxia inducible factor prolyl hydroxylases)...

Tuberculosis (TB) remains a serious public health threat around the world. An effective vaccine is urgently required for cost-effective, long-term control of TB. However, the only licensed vaccine Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) is limited to prevent TB for its highly variable efficacy. Substantial progress has been made in research and development (R&D) of TB vaccines in the past decades, and a dozen vaccine candidates, including live attenuated mycobacterial vaccines, killed mycobacterial vaccines, adjuvanted subunit vaccines, viral vector vaccines, and messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines were developed in clinical trials to date...

BACKGROUND: Acute undifferentiated febrile illness is a common challenge for clinicians, especially in tropical and subtropical countries. Incorrect or delayed diagnosis of febrile patients may result in medical complications or preventable deaths. Common causes of acute undifferentiated febrile illness in Colombia include leptospirosis, rickettsioses, dengue fever, malaria, chikungunya, and Zika virus infection. In this study, we described the acute undifferentiated febrile illness in postmortem patients reported as suspected cases of leptospirosis through the national leptospirosis surveillance in Colombia, 2016-2019...

BACKGROUND: Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is fatal neglected parasitic illness caused by Leishmania donovani . The diagnosis remains a challenge due to the non-specific clinical symptoms, especially in areas where infections like malaria and limited access to diagnostic tools coexist. Here, we describe a case of late diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis using tru-cut biopsy of the spleen and malaria co-infection. CASE PRESENTATION: Here case report, a 24-year-old patient from an endemic region of Somalia presented with fever, headache, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, and weight loss for two months...

Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is the leading cause of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Chronic viral hepatitis is projected to surpass the composite mortality rates of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), tuberculosis, and malaria by 2040. It can be attributed to several barriers to chronic HBV infection (CHBVI) surveillance that warrant urgent attention. Here, we report a case of a 40-year-old male with CHBVI who developed HCC and underwent partial hepatic resection. However, due to an interruption in insurance and medication regimen, the patient became the victim of healthcare disparity, which led to the progression of HCC and succumbed to widespread metastasis...

BACKGROUND: In sub-Saharan Africa, malaria, chronic viral diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and haemoglobinopathies are common causes of anaemia. Continual surveillance data is required to situate the anaemia and infectious disease burden within a given population. This study determined the 4-year trends of anaemia, hepatitis B virus (HBV), and HCV infections and factors associated with anaemia in young Ghanaian adults. METHODS: This retrospective study analysed the medical records of 21,716 fresh students at the University of Cape Coast...

A rise in the incidence of water-borne, communicable illnesses, and viral outbreaks in Pakistan follows periods of heavy rainfall. Due to climate change, floods and droughts have had devastating effects on human health by facilitating the spread of infectious illnesses including cholera, malaria, typhoid, dengue fever, and viral hepatitis A. Food instability, starvation, malnutrition, and a lack of potable water are only some of the indirect effects of flooding on health. Recently, one of the worst floods in history devastated Pakistan, affecting more than 333 million people along with a significant portion of the nation submerged...

BACKGROUND: In Ghana, Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection remains a major public health threat as in many parts of the world. Even with an effective vaccine, there are shortfalls with low vaccine coverage among adults. To create awareness and encourage vaccination, community engagement and public-private partnerships are needed in endemic settings to help fund campaigns and offer screening and vaccinations at no cost to under privileged people. OBJECTIVES: An awareness and screening exercise was scheduled by University of Ghana-based Hepatitis-Malaria (HEPMAL) project team to coincide with the World Hepatitis Day (WHD) 2021...

BACKGROUND: Hepatitis is a major cause of healthcare burden in India. Hepatitis A is the most common cause of acute viral hepatitis in the pediatric population whereas hepatitis E virus (HEV) is the most important cause of epidemic hepatitis. Various other causes of acute infective hepatitis in children are dengue, malaria, and enteric fever. The aim of the present study is to understand the clinico-serological profile in cases of acute infective hepatitis in children.  Methodology: The present study is a cross-sectional study that was carried out from 1 September 2017 to 31 March 2019...

COVID-19 pandemic puts an enormous strain on health care systems worldwide and may have a detrimental effect on prevention, treatment and outcomes of tuberculosis (TB), viral hepatitis, HIV/AIDS and malaria, whose ending is part of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We conducted a systematic review of scientific and grey literature in order to collect wide-ranging evidence with emphasis on quantification of the projected and actual indirect impacts of COVID-19 on the four infectious diseases with a global focus...

BACKGROUND: Malaria remains a leading public health problem worldwide. Co-infections with other pathogens complicate its diagnosis and may modify the disease's clinical course and management. Similarities in malaria clinical presentation with other infections and overlapping endemicity result in underdiagnosis of co-infections and increased mortality. Thus, the aim of this study was to determine the seroprevalence of viral and bacterial pathogens among diagnosed malaria patients in malaria-endemic areas in Venezuela...

Background Management of a febrile patient is based on understanding the pathophysiology of an abnormal temperature and temperature regulation, impacts of fever, and its treatment. In the current study, we aimed to characterize and compare the epidemiological, etiologic, microbiological, serological, clinical, and outcome traits of febrile patients with acute neutropenia admitted to a tertiary care center in Western Maharashtra. Methods Adult patients with a history of fever of less than two weeks' duration and without any immunosuppressive state were screened with predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria...

Background Ensuring blood safety is the primary goal of transfusion medicine. Despite extensive serological tests and strict safety measures, the risk of transfusion-transmitted infections (TTIs) still exists. As applied to blood screening, Nucleic Acid Amplification Test (NAT) offers much higher sensitivity for detecting viral infections. It is, however, currently available to a handful of centers due to the high cost. This study aims to establish the Effectiveness of NAT by assessing the NAT yield and residual risk of transmission of Hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV) and HIV with and without NAT testing...

Neuromeningeal cryptococcosis and pulmonary tuberculosis are respectively serious mycotic and bacterial infections occurring in a subject regardless of its HIV serological status. We report here a case of neuromeningeal cryptococcosis associated with pulmonary tuberculosis and malnutrition in an HIV-seronegative patient with a CD4 count of 750/mm3 , to highlight some particularities opposed to certain literatures. This is an 18-year-old patient, housewife, from Bamako, admitted in the Infectious and tropical diseases department of the University teaching hospital Point G of Bamako on March 13, 2022 for fever and impaired consciousness...

These guidelines discuss the epidemiology, screening, diagnosis, posttransplant prophylaxis, monitoring, and management of endemic infections in solid organ transplant (SOT) candidates, recipients, and donors in South Asia. The guidelines also provide recommendations for SOT recipients traveling to this region. These guidelines are based on literature review and expert opinion by transplant physicians, surgeons, and infectious diseases specialists, mostly from South Asian countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka) as well as transplant experts from other countries...

While recent epidemics have generated particular interest in viral infections, it should be noted that diagnostic, prophylactic or therapeutic innovations concerning other pathogens are not lacking. New vaccines (malaria, shingles) but new viruses (Lengya, child hepatitis), new therapeutic options against disabling parasitic diseases and bacteria becoming more and more resistant, including tuberculosis, shortening of treatment durations (tuberculosis, endocarditis), new diagnostic tests (borreliosis) are, among others, some notable recent innovations...

BACKGROUND: Persons in Pakistan have suffered from various infectious diseases over the years, each impacted by various factors including climate change, seasonality, geopolitics, and resource availability. The COVID-19 pandemic is another complicating factor, with changes in the reported incidence of endemic infectious diseases and related syndromes under surveillance. METHODS: We assessed the monthly incidence of eight important infectious diseases/syndromes: acute upper respiratory infection (AURI), viral hepatitis, malaria, pneumonia, diarrhea, typhoid fever, measles, and neonatal tetanus (NNT), before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic...