Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 prevalence from repeated pooled testing: application to Swiss routine data.

Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 through reported positive RT-PCR tests is biased due to non-random testing. Prevalence estimation in population-based samples corrects for this bias. Within this context, the pooled testing design offers many advantages, but several challenges remain with regards to the analysis of such data.

STIB980: A TcI Strain for Drug Discovery and Reverse Genetics.

Since the first published genome sequence of in 2005, there have been tremendous technological advances in genomics, reverse genetics, and assay development for this elusive pathogen. However, there is still an unmet need for new and better drugs to treat Chagas disease. Here, we introduce a assay strain that is useful for drug research and basic studies of host-pathogen interactions.

Direct and indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mortality in Switzerland.

The direct and indirect impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on population-level mortality is of concern to public health but challenging to quantify. Using data for 2011-2019, we applied Bayesian models to predict the expected number of deaths in Switzerland and compared them with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 deaths from February 2020 to April 2022 (study period). We estimated that COVID-19-related mortality was underestimated by a factor of 0.

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Chagas disease is a zoonosis caused by and transmitted by triatomine bugs. Autochthonous to Latin America, Chagas disease has spread globally through travel and migration. New drugs are needed urgently, in particular drugs that cure the chronic stage.

Combination With Tomatidine Improves the Potency of Posaconazole Against .

Azoles such as posaconazole (Posa) are highly potent against . However, when tested in chronic Chagas disease patients, a high rate of relapse after Posa treatment was observed. It appears that inhibition of cytochrome CYP51, the target of azoles, does not deliver sterile cure in monotherapy.

Non-invasive monitoring of drug action: A new live in vitro assay design for Chagas' disease drug discovery.

New assay designs are needed to improve the predictive value of the Trypanosoma cruzi in vitro tests used as part of the Chagas' disease drug development pipeline. Here, we employed a green fluorescent protein (eGFP)-expressing parasite line and live high-content imaging to monitor the growth of T. cruzi amastigotes in mouse embryonic fibroblasts.

Characterization of asymptomatic Plasmodium falciparum infection and its risk factors in pregnant women from the Republic of Congo.

Malaria in pregnancy remains a serious public health problem in the Republic of Congo despite the implementation of intermittent preventive treatment with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (IPTp-SP) in 2006. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to characterize Plasmodium falciparum infections and determine possible risk factors in pregnant Congolese women attending an antenatal clinic in a periurban area of southern Brazzaville. This study was conducted from March 2012 to December 2013 in a site where several years ago, high malaria resistance to SP was reported.

High prevalence of sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine resistance-associated mutations in Plasmodium falciparum field isolates from pregnant women in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo.

Intermittent preventive treatment during pregnancy with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (IPTp-SP) has not been evaluated in the Republic of Congo since its implementation in 2006 and there is no published data on molecular markers of SP resistance among Plasmodium falciparum isolates from pregnant women. This first study in this country aimed to describe the prevalence of dihydrofolate reductase (dhfr) and dihydropteroate synthase (dhps) point mutations and haplotypes in P. falciparum isolates collected from pregnant women with asymptomatic infection.