Tropical Disease News and Research

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Tropical diseases encompass all diseases that occur solely, or principally, in the tropics. In practice, the term is often taken to refer to infectious diseases that thrive in hot, humid conditions, such as malaria, leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, onchocerciasis, lymphatic filariasis, Chagas disease, African trypanosomiasis, and dengue.

Neglected tropical diseases to be tackled in Africa’s poorest communities

World Health Organization and Uniting to Combat NTDs collaborate to tackle the five most common Neglected tropical diseases; onchocerciasis, trachoma, schistosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis and helminthic infections.

30 Jan 2018

Polio labs equipped to tackle neglected tropical diseases

Researchers from LSTM have investigated the possibility of utilizing the Polio network of 145 labs set up around the world to help tackle neglected tropical diseases which impact on the lives of about a billion of people.

27 Jan 2018

Researchers find link between genetic molecules in mosquitos and dengue fever

Researchers at the University of Missouri have found a link between genetic molecules in mosquitos and dengue fever.

25 Jan 2018

Women survive better than men during hard times, research shows

Women today tend to live longer than men almost everywhere worldwide -- in some countries by more than a decade.

9 Jan 2018

Researchers identify cholera hotspots at Uganda's borders and lakes

Uganda is among the countries is sub-Saharan Africa where cholera remains a recurring problem, despite advances in science and technology for prevention, detection and treatment of the infectious disease.

29 Dec 2017

Edixomed develops revolutionary technology for tackling antimicrobial resistance

New results announced at the recent Wounds UK conference and Eurobiofilms 2017 congress, have provided the latest evidence that Edixomed, a UK biotechnology company, has developed a revolutionary new technology for tackling the enormous public health challenge of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

22 Dec 2017

UTEP researchers one step closer to developing effective vaccine for cutaneous leishmaniasis

A research team at The University of Texas at El Paso is one step closer to developing an effective human vaccine for cutaneous leishmaniasis, a tropical disease found in Texas and Oklahoma, and affecting some U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

15 Nov 2017

GHIT Fund announces US$16.7 million to support development of new drugs, vaccines and diagnostics

The Global Health Innovative Technology Fund, a unique Japanese public-private partnership formed to battle infectious diseases around the globe, today announced US$16.7 million to support development of new compounds for fighting malaria and tuberculosis, a leishmaniasis vaccine and drug, and a treatment for a long-ignored flesh-eating infection.

31 Oct 2017

LSTM researchers find new way to reduce treatment for some parasitic diseases

Researchers from LSTM's Research Centre for Drugs and Diagnostics have found a way of significantly reducing the treatment required for lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis from several weeks to seven days. By targeting Wolbachia, a bacterial symbiont that the filarial parasites need to live, the team has discovered a drug synergy that enables effective treatment over a shorter time.

24 Oct 2017

Trial reveals value of tuberculosis chemoprophylaxis in HIV-infected people

Long-term follow-up in the ANRS TEMPRANO trial confirms that tuberculosis chemoprophylaxis in HIV-infected people is more than ever relevant in resource-limited countries.

10 Oct 2017

Time spent outdoors impacts risk for contracting Zika virus

When Zika first buzzed into the continental United States during the 2016 outbreak, Florida was hit first--and hardest--with 1,174 documented cases to date. So, when Marco Ajelli, associate research scientist at Northeastern and an expert in infectious disease modeling, wanted to study how time spent outside might affect the spread of the epidemic, he chose to focus on the state's most stricken county: Miami-Dade.

22 Sep 2017

Trusted messages proved essential to counter misperceptions during Ebola epidemic

Utilizing messages focused on images created by local artists and written information communicated through local dialects proved essential to counter misperceptions during the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone, according to a study conducted in part by Muriel J. Harris, Ph.D., associate professor, University of Louisville School of Public Health and Information Sciences, Department of Health Promotion and Behavior Sciences.

21 Sep 2017

Study reveals how nitric oxide impedes growth of ‘snail fever’ parasite

Bilharzia, caused by a parasitic worm found in freshwater called Schistosoma, infects around 200 million people globally and its advance can lead to death, especially in children in developing countries.

14 Sep 2017

Researchers use NASA’s satellite data to forecast malaria outbreaks

In the Amazon Rainforest, few animals are as dangerous to humans as mosquitos that transmit malaria. The tropical disease can bring on high fever, headaches, and chills and is particularly severe for children and the elderly and can cause complications for pregnant women.

13 Sep 2017

FDA grants accelerated approval to new treatment for children with Chagas disease

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today granted accelerated approval to benznidazole for use in children ages 2 to 12 years old with Chagas disease. It is the first treatment approved in the United States for the treatment of Chagas disease.

29 Aug 2017

Fewer disease-carrying mosquitoes live in undisturbed tropical forests, study finds

A new study by scientists from the Smithsonian, the Panamanian government, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, among other institutions, concludes that conserving old-growth tropical rainforest is "highly recommended" to prevent new outbreaks of viral and parasitic mosquito-borne diseases.

23 Aug 2017

Stable vaccines using microscopic crystals from cypovirus

Scientists at Cell Guidance Systems, Cambridge University and Imperial College are exploiting microscopic crystals, made by a cypovirus, to produce stable vaccines for diseases that mostly affect the world's poorest people.

From Cell Guidance Systems 21 Aug 2017

Compounds produced by creosote bush exhibit anti-parasitic activity against pathogenic protozoa

Researchers at Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at University of California San Diego and the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have found that compounds produced by the creosote bush, a desert plant common to the Southwestern United States, exhibit potent anti-parasitic activity against the protozoa responsible for giardia infections and an amoeba that causes an often-lethal form of encephalitis.

16 Aug 2017

Wireless remote monitoring: the future for patients with atrial fibrillation?

Peerbridge Health has the vision to remove all wires associated with monitoring patients. For example, typically, electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring systems have a multitude of wires. They started building a wireless ECG monitoring system called the Peerbridge Cor™ to improve ECG monitoring from the ground up.

9 Aug 2017

Zika: costs of prevention and control

They undertook a modelling study based on six states in the US in areas that are at risk of Zika emergence. The main finding of this study was that the total cost of Zika in these sates had a range that went from approximately 183.4 million dollars to 1.2 billion dollars.

6 Jul 2017