Managing Lymphedema Induced by Lymphatic Filariasis: Implementing and Improving Care at the Individual and Programmatic Levels.

Providing and improving the care of patients suffering from lymphedema remains an essential goal for the clinical management of populations affected by lymphatic filariasis. Although the Essential Package of Care (EPC) recommended by the WHO leads to important positive benefits for many of these lymphedema patients, it is important to continue to address the challenges that remain both in quantifying these effects and in ensuring optimal care. This report, based on the authors' scientific and field experience, focuses on the impact and significance of lymphedema, its clinical presentation, current treatment approaches, and the importance of lymphedema care to the Global Program to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis.

Progress and impact of 20 years of a lymphatic filariasis elimination programme in South-East Asia.

Background: The South-East Asia regional programme to eliminate lymphatic filariasis (LF) was launched in 2000. This study presents the progress and impact of the programme in the region.

Methods: Mass drug administration (MDA) and morbidity management data were accessed from the WHO preventive chemotherapy databank.

Elimination of lymphatic filariasis as a public health problem from Tonga.

Background: Tonga was highly endemic for lymphatic filariasis (LF) caused by diurnally sub-periodic i transmitted by vector species. LF prevalence declined very appreciably as a result of chemotherapeutic intervention measures implemented in 1977, but low levels of infection persisted. Along with other Pacific Island countries and in partnership with the Pacific Programme to Eliminate LF (PacELF), Tonga implemented a programme to eliminate LF as a public health problem.

Regeneration of erythroid progenitor cells in polycythemic mice treated with cyclophosphamide.

Mice with posthypoxic polycythemia treated with a sublethal dose of cyclophosphamide (Cy) were used as a model to investigate, by in vitro methods, the kinetics of regeneration of erythroid committed precursors (ECP) and to study the influence of erythropoietin (Ep) on those precursor cells. The results demonstrated that erythroid burst-forming units (BFU-E), early (d10) and late (d4), and erythroid colony-forming units (CFU-E) recover at different rates after Cy. Early BFU-E recovery was not Ep dependent and closely resembled regeneration of pre-erythropoietin-responsive cells (pre-ERC) found previously using the same experimental model.