[Dr Jean Languillon (1912-2003), a major unrecognized leprologist].

Languillon's contribution to the control of leprosy cannot be reduced to the manual of leprology which remains the reference for anyone working on this disease in sub-Saharan Africa. This would mean forgetting his works that established the immunological origin of leprosy and its cutaneous, adverse and neurological complications.Another major aspect, the importance of his contribution to the treatment of the disease, in particular through the development of polychimiotherapy (PCT), which has made Institut Marchoux in Bamako one of the five WHO's collaborating centers in the field of clinical research in leprosy.

Transmission of human African trypanosomiasis in the Komo-Mondah focus, Gabon.

Background: Knowledge about transmission of sleeping sickness in a given focus is of a great importance since it governs the efficacy and the cost-effectiveness of control strategy. The Komo-Mondah focus is the most endemic sleeping sickness focus of Gabon. This focus has hardly been investigated and available publications are more than thirty years old.

Have tsetse flies disappeared from Brazzaville town?

Background: From 1980 to 1985, the zoological park of Brazzaville was the only tsetse resting site located in downtown which supplied others temporary sites. The last trapping survey carried out in this area in 1987 showed that there were no more tsetse flies. Knowing that areas free of tsetse used to be reinvaded many years later, we have carried out an entomological survey in the area with the aim to verify what has happened more than twenty years later; given that suitable environmental conditions for Glossina are still available.

Identification and typing of Cameroonian isolates of P. malariae using monoclonal antibodies against P. brasilianum.

In the present study, monoclonal antibodies raised against Plasmodium brasilianum were used to demonstrate, for the first time, antigenic diversity in natural populations of Plasmodium malariae isolates and as diagnostic tool to detect low parasitaemia P. malariae infection. Seventeen McAbs reacting by indirect immunoflorescence antibody (IFA) assay with no other Plasmodium species than P.