Lymphatic filariasis is a parasitic disease caused by microscopic, thread-like worms. The adult worms only live in the human lymph system. The lymph system maintains the body's fluid balance and fights infections. Lymphatic filariasis is spread from person to person by mosquitoes.
People with the disease can suffer from lymphedema and elephantiasis and in men, swelling of the scrotum, called hydrocele. Lymphatic filariasis is a leading cause of permanent disability worldwide. Communities frequently shun and reject women and men disfigured by the disease. Affected people frequently are unable to work because of their disability, and this harms their families and their communities.
At the Clinton Global Initiative today, the Inter-American Development Bank joined with the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases to announce their commitment to mobilize $30 million from the public and private sectors to raise awareness and funding for NTD control and elimination in the Americas, supported by technical assistance from the Pan American Health Organization, regional office of the World Health Organization for the Americas.
New biotechnologies that allow scientists to quickly and accurately distinguish species based on a simple DNA analysis are being creatively deployed for the first time in the war against a major global disease.
Stating that neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) not only promote poverty but also destabilize communities, former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson and Sabin Vaccine Institute President Peter Hotez call upon the public-health and foreign-policy communities to embrace medical diplomacy and NTD control as a means to combat terrorism in an article published January 27 in the open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.
Spray yourself with a DEET-based insect repellent and the mosquitoes will leave you alone. But why? They flee because of their intense dislike for the smell of the chemical repellent and not because DEET jams their sense of smell, report researchers at the University of California, Davis.
An opportunity to contribute to a major initiative to alleviate poverty in the world's poorest populations.
Doxycycline alone is more effective against the most common form of filariasis in Southeast Asia than the standard treatment, with significantly fewer side effects, according to a new study published in the May 1 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases and currently available online.
Findings from a new study in Zanzibar, published January 23 in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, pave the way for the World Health Organization (WHO) to recommend the mass co-delivery of three anti-parasitic drugs for the first time.
Though little known to most Americans, lymphatic filariasis, trachoma, leishmaniasis, onchocerciasis, schistosomiasis and other so-called neglected tropical diseases are responsible for severe health burdens, especially among the world's poorest people.
Sri Lankans infected with lymphatic filariasis (also known as elephantiasis) experience severe loss of income, social isolation, and devastating stigma resulting in emotional distress, delayed diagnosis, and avoidance of treatment.
Once-yearly administration of two anti-parasitic drugs to control lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis) costs just $0.06 to $2.23 per person treated, making it comparatively inexpensive, according to a major new international study of treatment costs.
The World Health Organization (WHO) based Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) has adopted a new strategy for strengthening and expanding research to prevent and control 'infectious diseases of poverty.'
Weill Cornell Medical College scientist Dr. Carl Nathan has issued a bold call for reforming the pharmaceutical development and patent systems in order to increase the number of vaccines and drugs available to combat neglected diseases that are ravaging the world's poor.
Though little known outside the developing world, the disease called lymphatic filariasis wreaks havoc on millions of people by causing their limbs and genitals to fill with fluid and swell monstrously - the symptom commonly known as elephantiasis.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and a group of more than 25 partner organizations unveiled a new strategy to fight some of the most neglected tropical diseases that destroy the lives and health of poor people.
Waterborne infectious diseases, which bring death and illness to millions of people around the world, could largely be consigned to history by 2015 if global health partnerships integrate their programmes, according to Alan Fenwick writing in Science.
China is slated to be officially declared free of the debilitating disease lymphatic filariasis, 15 years ahead of the global elimination target of 2020.
Clear evidence that Lymphatic Filariasis (LF, commonly known as elephantiasis) can be eliminated is reported in The Lancet. LF is one of the world's most disfiguring and disabling parasitic diseases, and the target of one of the largest global public health programs using mass drug administration (MDA).
Organizers of a 20-year global effort to eliminate a parasitic infection that is a leading cause of disability have an early victory to savor: a five-year Egyptian elimination campaign has mostly succeeded, according to a new report in the March 25 issue of The Lancet.
Achieving success in the global fight against the "big three" diseases - HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, which together account for 5.6 million deaths a year - may well require a concurrent attack on the world’s most neglected tropical diseases, says a team of researchers in the international open access journal PLoS Medicine.
"The big three" infections AIDS, TB and malaria have caught the world's attention but other disabling and fatal infectious diseases in Africa are being ignored, say three eminent tropical disease researchers in the international health journal PLoS Medicine.