Publications by authors named "N B Kabatereine"
Article Synopsis
- * A study in Uganda involving 2867 individuals revealed a 15-year gap between peak water contact and infection ages, showing minimal correlation between individual water contact and infection rates.
- * Key findings include that adults often have higher water contact than children, with factors like age, occupation, and proximity to water bodies influencing contact patterns, highlighting the need for targeted interventions in at-risk groups.
The relative contributions of exposure vs. acquired immunity to the epidemiology of human schistosomiasis has been long debated. While there is considerable evidence that humans acquire partial immunity to infection, age- and sex-related contact patterns with water bodies contaminated with infectious cercarial schistosome larvae also contribute to typical epidemiological profiles of infection.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Manual screening of a Kato-Katz (KK) thick stool smear remains the current standard to monitor the impact of large-scale deworming programs against soil-transmitted helminths (STHs). To improve this diagnostic standard, we recently designed an artificial intelligence based digital pathology system (AI-DP) for digital image capture and analysis of KK thick smears. Preliminary results of its diagnostic performance are encouraging, and a comprehensive evaluation of this technology as a cost-efficient end-to-end diagnostic to inform STH control programs against the target product profiles (TPP) of the World Health Organisation (WHO) is the next step for validation.
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- - The study investigated the relationship between schistosomiasis infection and periportal fibrosis (a liver condition) among 2834 individuals aged 5-90 in Uganda, using ultrasound and various diagnostic tests.
- - Findings revealed that 12.1% of participants had periportal fibrosis, while 43.4% were infected with schistosomiasis, although there was no direct correlation between infection intensity and the likelihood of developing fibrosis.
- - Notably, the risk of periportal fibrosis increased with age, significantly rising until about 45 years, then stabilizing or decreasing thereafter, highlighting the importance of considering age in future morbidity assessments for schistosomiasis.
Mass-drug administration (MDA) of human populations using praziquantel monotherapy has become the primary strategy for controlling and potentially eliminating the major neglected tropical disease schistosomiasis. To understand how long-term MDA impacts schistosome populations, we analysed whole-genome sequence data of 570 samples (and the closely related outgroup species, from eight countries incorporating both publicly-available sequence data and new parasite material. This revealed broad-scale genetic structure across countries but with extensive transmission over hundreds of kilometres.
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