#Neglected tropical diseases

[physiologicdeadspace]

Portrait of a child with Buruli ulcer by @claire_carswell

This is caused by an infection with mycobacterium ulcerans.

Buruli ulcer often starts as a painless swelling (nodule), a large painless area of induration (plaque) or a diffuse painless swelling of the legs, arms or face (oedema). The disease may progress with no pain and fever. Without treatment or sometimes during antibiotics treatment, the nodule, plaque or oedema will ulcerate within 4 weeks. Bone is occasionally affected, causing deformities.

This neglected tropical disease has been reported in 33 countries but transmission (and prevention) is poorly understood, and it is a very under-researched disease

[sagunpaudel]

World NTDs Day: Act Now. Act Together. Invest in Neglected Tropical Diseases

World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day: Act Now. Act Together. Invest in Neglected Tropical Diseases  By Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia To mark this year’s World Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) Day, WHO is calling on countries and communities in the South-East Asia Region and across the world to confront the inequalities that drive NTDs, and to make bold,…

[pocketglobalhealth]

On NTD's and Global Health

[pharmafocusasiamagazine]

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) affect more than one billion people worldwide. Although this group of 20 infectious conditions corresponds to 11 per cent of the global disease burden, no innovative drugs have been developed in this field. The World Health Organization (WHO) has played a central role in raising global awareness on the subject. Recently, WHO launched its roadmap on NTDs for 2021-2030, which highlights the advances made over the past years and sets the strategies to eliminate these diseases by 2030. According to this agenda, pharmaceutical innovation will be central for the achievement of the agreed goals, especially for protozoan and helminthic NTDs. Unfortunately, drug research and development (R&D) for highly prevalent NTDs such as schistosomiasis, human African trypanosomiasis, Chagas disease and leishmaniasis, has, for  decades, been characterised for insufficient funding and low-technology approaches. This paradigm has recently changed given the rising of initiatives that involve notfor- profit organisations, universities, and pharma companies. Among these partnerships we can cite the NTD Drug Discovery Booster, the Lead Optimization Latin America (LOLA),the WIPO Re: Search project, and the Welcome Trust for NTD drug discovery programme, the first two being administered by the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi). These programmes have proven invaluable to catalyse drug R&D for NTDs by integrating medicinal chemistry and parasite biology and allowing multi-parameter optimisation (MPO) of high-quality hits and lead compounds. Despite these efforts, innovative products have not been regularly developed and approved for NTDs. The few products that have recently been approved for  these conditions are known or repurposed drugs, new formulations, or combination chemotherapies.

Read More: https://www.pharmafocusasia.com/research-development/innovation-elimination-neglected

[tenisperfection]

I have worked with so many viruses at this point but nothing fucks me up more than rabies does. it's fucked up. FUCKED UP. what do you mean it crosses the blood brain barrier and we can't treat it with drugs because antivirals can't get past the bbb :(

[thepastisalreadywritten]

17 September 2024

[travelbasscase]

joy of joys!

malaria in the NEJM! always a good day when there's interesting images in clinical medicine.

[chagasdiseaseday]

Congenital Chagas Disease: where are the knowledge and research gaps?

In this ISNTD Connect, Dr Marina Gold (Anthropologist & CEO Mundo Sano Foundation) and Elise Rapp (Nurse, Biologist, PhD-student in Social Sciences University of Lausanne and HESAV, HES-SO, Switzerland) present a scoping review of the literature on congenital Chagas Disease and share some of the main knowledge and research trends and gaps. Following a presentation of published work, the discussion highlights the pivotal role of social sciences in tackling neglected diseases, from a better understanding of the social determinants of health to breaking down the barriers to treatments access and lifelong care.

"Congenital Chagas Disease: where are the knowledge and research gaps?" Recorded online as part of the ISNTD Connect series on Neglected Tropical Diseases.

[mindblowingscience]

Back in 2014, dermatologist Bridget McIlwee saw a 3-year-old patient in central Texas with unusual bumps on his ear. "They looked a little bit like almost kind of a benign mole that you would see in a child, except that you wouldn't expect something like that to come up quickly and then multiply," she says. McIlwee sent off a sample for laboratory testing, and the results came back pointing to a surprising culprit: The boy had tested positive for cutaneous leishmaniasis, a neglected tropical disease. The World Health Organization says between 600,000 and 1 million new infections happen worldwide every year, mostly in tropical regions of the Americas, the Mediterranean basin, the Middle East and Central Asia — not in Texas. These illnesses can be disfiguring, even if they are rarely fatal. "I was shocked, because in medical school, we're taught that this is a tropical disease, something that you see in immigrants, military returning from deployment, people who went on vacation to South America or Asia or Africa," McIlwee says.

Continue Reading.

[kiskivmiske]

One of four dragon species appearing in my JCA fan fiction, along with other cryptids.

Dragons of Whispering Grasses are the largest known species, but also one of the most docile.

Small round muzzles. Plantigrade, broad webbed paws and thick short claws. Scales are usually golden and green, but can range from chocolate brown to cream and gray. Darker color is speculated to be the result of crossbreeding with other species. Large antlers resemble tree branches.

Good runners and flyers. Okay-ish, but not very fast swimmers. They mostly float or paddle at the surface, waiting for fish or duck to swim nearby, or munching on weed and algae.

Omnivores with preference for plants. Adults can digest carrion.

Prefer humid, temperate to hot climates. Build colonies in wetlands, swamps, rainforests, woodlands, on river and lake shores. Make nests by planting trees in a specific way, shaping them into basket-like formations as they grow. Depending on soil, may add underground tunnels to the structure. Live in large family groups the oldest female is normally in charge. Unlike three other species (including Shendu's dragons), don't have an official ruler.

One female brings up to four eggs at the time. Eggs are approximately 17-20 inches in diameter, reddish or brown with black and white specks, resembling granite boulders.

Baby dragons are named after plants in the area where they hatched.

Their scales have porous structure. Young dragons bathe in mud and roll on the forest floor to let soil, seeds and spores attach to their scales. As dragons grow, plants, moss and fungi cover them in natural camouflage. They take care of each other's scales, putting new plants in and taking dead leaves out.

When a dragon dies, they stop producing chemicals preventing roots from penetrating skin. Dead dragons are covered in a layer of leaves and left in designated place so plants growing on them could reclaim their bodies.

Dragons of Whispering Grasses have reputation of gardeners and forest keepers. They make sure rivers don't run dry, digging channels with their powerful paws, and keep wildlife population under control, eating sick animals. Like other fire breathing dragons, they are resistant to fire. If they spot a wildfire, they work together to circle the source and shield fire from spreading with their wings, slowly moving towards the center, extinguishing it.

They absolutely despise Shendu and his siblings and were the first to rebel after being chased away from Africa by the earth demon.

Their closest allies are tropical sea dragons, who admire their relationship with nature and plants in particular.

Arctic sea dragons have rather strained relationship with them, deeming them unclean savages, unlike their germophobic, snow loving selves, and avoided like plague. Dragons of Whispering Grasses, despite their fungus covered scales, are susceptible to very few diseases and parasites, and less infectious than other species. Plants and fungi they form symbiosis with don't spread onto others because of different scale texture.

This species is known for parental instinct so strong, they would adopt neglected human children to raise as their own, usually girls. Being fairly harmless, they made a bad name for dragons as mean princess-stealing beasts for ages. In actuality, they wouldn't really mind if you moved into their nest uninvited, as long as you don't threaten their families, they are absolutely chill or even affectionate.

On the picture: Chestnut, young warrior of Pine's village. He was in relationship with a dragon of Freezing Depths, Princess Midnight. Her brother, Prince Hadal, who supported Shendu, punished her for treason, executing Midnight and her (and Chestnut's) daughters. Absolutely distraught, Chestnut fled, using time traveling portal. Concealing his dragon appearance, he settled in a small town to raise an abandoned human girl as his cub.

Chestnut is quick-witted and observant. With a natural talent for acting he becomes a good spy, following Hadal and interfering with his plans. He normally puts on facade of a happy-go-lucky guy, but on the inside he still lives through the moment of Midnight's execution. He is protective of his human daughter, and, later, of his bio offspring from second wife. Chestnut doesn't hesitate to fight anyone who harms his family, even if it's his daughter's bio mother.

He has four younger sisters, sixteen nieces and nephews, two daughters, two twin sons and one hybrid stepson. Became father figure to Hadal's disowned son, who couldn't breathe through his gills because of a cleft palate.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Oropouche virus: 200-fold increase in infections this year in Brazil compared to the last decade due to novel variant

The current outbreak of oropouche fever is caused by a novel variant of the arbovirus (OROV) that can replicate up to 100 times more than the original while also evading the victim’s immune response, according to an article published as a preprint (not yet peer-reviewed) on medRxiv.

Oropouche fever is a neglected tropical disease endemic to Latin America and the Caribbean. It is transmitted by mosquitoes and Culicoides midges. The main symptoms are headache, joint and muscle pain, nausea, vomiting, fever, chills, and photophobia. Some patients may manifest more severe symptoms, such as bleeding, as well as complications including meningitis and meningoencephalitis.

Although the disease has been documented in South America since the 1950s, the number of cases increased sharply between November 2023 and June 2024 in Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia and Peru. Autochthonous infections were detected in previously non-endemic areas throughout Brazil, with reports of cases in 21 states and a nearly 200-fold increase in incidence compared with the 2010s.

To investigate the virological factors that have contributed to this heightened spreading of oropouche fever, researchers at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), the University of São Paulo (USP) and the Federal University of Manaus (UFAM) in Brazil, collaborating with colleagues at the University of Kentucky in the United States, analyzed genomic, molecular and serological OROV data for the period between January 1, 2015, and June 29, 2024. They also characterized the variant in vitro and in vivo. The research was funded by FAPESP (projects 18/14389-0, 2022/00723-1, 2022/10408-6 and 2023/11521-3).

Continue reading.

[bpod-bpod]

Turning the Worm

Humans can catch the parasitic worm Trichinella spiralis from eating eg. infected pork. Here, an enzyme has been identified that's involved in the worm larvae invasion of the host gut lining – presenting a novel target for treatment of trichinosis

Read the published research paper here

Image from work by Yan Yan Song and colleagues

Department of Parasitology, Medical College, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, PR China

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, September 2023

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[stele3]

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-says-russia-is-considering-changing-its-nuclear-doctrine-2024-06-20/

[venerablehoney]

What do you see as the biggest public health crisis or vulnerability the world is either currently facing and or will face over the next ten year?

This is a really great question and a really difficult one to answer concisely (but I'll try lol). In industrial countries, chronic conditions are on the rise and are responsible for contributing to the increase of DALY'S but there are plenty of neglected tropical diseases that are claiming lives unnecessarily. Due to globalization, urbanization, and global warming our world is at increased risk of new and emerging diseases, including diseases that are spreading to non-endemic areas due to the spread of the aedes mosquito. We're seeing it (and the diseases it carries) further and further north.

We're seeing an increase in prevalence in some cancers because we're a) getting better at treating people and keeping people with cancer alive longer and b) there is an increase of persistent organic pollinates and microplastics in our world. In industrial countries, it is important to be mindful of cardiac health at a young age because heart disease typically does not manifest until many years after the damage has occurred and is preventable. However, prevention can be difficult due to social determinants of health.

Additionally, it's important to note that poverty, racism and general discrimination is a public health crisis that absolutely needs to be addressed. Racism and micro-aggressions biologically causes stress to the body that negatively affect the cardiovascular system, sympathetic nervous system and reproductive system. Without first addressing racism and striving to undo the systems in place that perpetuate it, racism will continue to be a public health crisis. Poverty makes meeting basic needs incredibly difficult and stressful, and without first securing fresh food and safe housing, an individual can not focus on their long term health.

Obviously, i left a lot out and each of the topics i mentioned deserve their own paper. I also cannot provide you with one single Public health crisis that is most important because they're all important and they connect with each other. Also, I study Public health from mainly a United States perspective.

[tenmyoujump]

^ two second google search for people who can’t be bothered to learn about shit that affects the world outside of what they know (white usamericans)