395 results match your criteria: "Eck Center for Global Health & Infectious Disease[Affiliation]"

Background: Malaria incidence in the Greater Mekong Subregion has been on the decline, and most remaining malaria risk in the region is concentrated among hard-to-reach populations, especially those with exposure to forested areas. New vector control tools focused on outdoor protection in forest settings are needed for these populations.

Methods: The delivery of a 'forest pack' containing a volatile pyrethroid spatial repellent (VPSR), a topical repellent, and pyrethroid treatment of clothing was evaluated in an operational study in Cambodia.

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Mosquito аbundance and species surveillance in St. Joseph County, Indiana, 1976-1997.

Biodivers Data J

December 2024

University of Notre Dame, Center for Research Computing, Eck Institute for Global Health, and Department of Biological Sciences, Notre Dame, United States of America University of Notre Dame, Center for Research Computing, Eck Institute for Global Health, and Department of Biological Sciences Notre Dame United States of America.

Background: Approximately twenty-one years of historical mosquito abundance and species surveillance data, collected by the University of Notre Dame and the St. Joseph County (IN) Health Department, from 1976 to 1997 are made available following a data rescue effort. St.

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Background: Spatial repellent products are used for prevention of insect bites, and a body of evidence exists on spatial repellent entomological efficacy. A new option for vector control, spatial repellent products are designed to release active ingredient into the air for disruption of human-vector contact thereby reducing human exposure to mosquito-borne pathogens. Clinical trials have shown spatial repellent epidemiological efficacy against Aedes-borne viruses but inconclusive outcomes against malaria.

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Background: Progress towards malaria elimination in the Greater Mekong Subregion has left much of the residual malaria transmission concentrated among forest-exposed populations for whom traditional domicile focused malaria vector control is unlikely to be effective. New tools to protect these populations from vector biting outdoors are needed.

Methods: Alongside implementation research on the deployment of a "forest pack" consisting of a volatile pyrethroid (transfluthrin)-based spatial repellent (VPSR), a picaridin-based topical repellent and etofenprox treatment of clothing, an assessment was made of participant willingness to pay for the forest packs and variants of the packs using a discrete choice experiment.

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Background: Ethiopia continues to grapple with a persistent malaria burden, characterized by ongoing transmission and recurrent outbreaks. Human behavior influences both malaria exposure and the effectiveness of vector interventions, complicating malaria control efforts. Implementing tailored strategies that account for the complex interplay between human activities and vector behavior remains a challenge in both high- and low-transmission areas in Ethiopia, particularly for vulnerable highland populations and temporary labor migrants, due to lack of data.

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Background: Although phytoestrogens modulated pancreatic tumour growth in experimental studies, it remains unclear whether phytoestrogen intake is associated with pancreatic cancer.

Methods: Of 92,278 persons who completed the Diet History Questionnaire in the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial, 346 were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer within a median follow-up of 9.4 years.

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Background: Artemisinin partial resistance (ART-R) has spread throughout Southeast Asia and mutations in , the molecular marker of resistance, are widely reported in East Africa. Effective assays and robust phenotypes are crucial for monitoring populations for the emergence and spread of resistance. The recently developed extended Recovery Ring-stage Survival Assay used a qPCR-based readout to reduce the labor intensiveness for phenotyping of ART-R and improved correlation with the clinical phenotype of ART-R.

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MalKinID: A Classification Model for Identifying Malaria Parasite Genealogical Relationships Using Identity-by-Descent.

Genetics

November 2024

Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.

Pathogen genomics is a powerful tool for tracking infectious disease transmission. In malaria, identity-by-descent (IBD) is used to assess the genetic relatedness between parasites and has been used to study transmission and importation. In theory, IBD can be used to distinguish genealogical relationships to reconstruct transmission history or identify parasites for quantitative-trait-locus experiments.

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Bangladesh reduced malaria incidence by 93% from 2008 to 2020 through the action of governmental and non-governmental organizations. The Bangladesh context is unique to South Asia because its successful public sector malaria control programs have historically not engaged corporate partners (as undertaken in Sri Lanka and proposed in India). However, ∼18 million people continue to live at risk of infection in Bangladesh and for-profit private healthcare providers, catalytic for malaria elimination in many countries, are expected to benefit the national program.

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Estimating the Size of Populations at High Risk of Malaria in 2 Operational Districts in Cambodia: Household-Based Survey.

JMIR Public Health Surveill

September 2024

Malaria Elimination Initiative, Institute for Global Health Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States.

Background: Cambodia is targeting the elimination of malaria by 2025. The last remaining pockets of malaria in Cambodia are concentrated among populations exposed to forested areas, but the size of these populations is not well understood. To plan for the procurement and distribution of vector-control tools, chemoprophylaxis, and other commodities for malaria prevention and surveillance, robust estimates of the population at greatest risk are required.

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Outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) are nanostructures derived from the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria. We previously demonstrated that vaccination with endotoxin-free OMVs isolated from an strain lacking lipooligosaccharide (LOS) biosynthesis, due to a mutation in , provides full protection in a murine sepsis model. The present study characterizes the protein content of highly-purified OMVs isolated from LOS-replete and LOS-deficient strains.

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Background: Reactive case detection (RCD) aims to reduce malaria transmission stemming from asymptomatic carriers. Symptomatic individuals diagnosed with malaria at a health centre are followed to their households, where members of the index case and neighbouring households are tested and treated for malaria. An RCD programme was tested in the Ashanti region of Ghana in order to study diagnostic accuracy in the hospital and household settings, assess the prevalence of subclinical infections and possible clustering in index case households, and identify operational challenges for future RCD programmes.

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Phlebotomine sand flies are the vectors of leishmaniasis, a neglected tropical disease. High-quality reference genomes are an important tool for understanding the biology and eco-evolutionary dynamics underpinning disease epidemiology. Previous leishmaniasis vector reference sequences were limited by sequencing technologies available at the time and inadequate for high-resolution genomic inquiry.

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Current and future directions in network biology.

Bioinform Adv

August 2024

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, United States.

Article Synopsis
  • Network biology is an interdisciplinary field that combines computational and biological sciences to improve understanding of cellular functions and diseases, though it is still a developing area after two decades.* -
  • The field faces challenges due to the increasing complexity and diversity of biological data, but active research areas include molecular networks, patient similarity networks, and machine learning applications.* -
  • The article provides an overview of recent advancements, highlights future directions, and emphasizes the need for diverse scientific communities and educational initiatives within network biology.*
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Pathogen genomics is a powerful tool for tracking infectious disease transmission. In malaria, identity-by-descent (IBD) is used to assess the genetic relatedness between parasites and has been used to study transmission and importation. In theory, IBD can be used to distinguish genealogical relationships to reconstruct transmission history or identify parasites for genotype-to-phenotype quantitative-trait-locus experiments.

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Dignity in the Pediatric Population: A Systematic Review.

J Pain Symptom Manage

December 2024

Department of Oncology(A.K.,E.C.K.), Division of Quality of Life and Palliative Care, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, USA.

Context: Children are a uniquely vulnerable patient population with restricted abilities for self-advocacy and autonomy, risking infringement upon their dignity. Yet the concept of dignity in pediatrics remains underexplored relative to the adult literature and other outcome measures.

Objectives: To characterize how dignity is defined, evaluated, and/or measured in pediatrics.

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Background: The protective effectiveness of vector control in malaria relies on how the implemented tools overlap with mosquito species-specific compositions and bionomic traits. In Ethiopia, targeted entomological data enabling strategic decision-making are lacking around high-risk migrant worker camps in the lowlands and resident communities in the highlands-resulting in suboptimal malaria control strategies for both populations. This study investigates spatial and temporal mosquito behavior, generating baseline evidence that will improve malaria control for both migrant workers in the lowlands and their home communities in the highlands.

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Article Synopsis
  • Khat is a plant that many people in eastern Ethiopia use as a stimulant, and its use has grown a lot, even though it can have bad effects on health.
  • Researchers talked to people in the Haramaya District to learn how they feel about khat and how it affects their lives.
  • The study found that khat is seen as important for making money, can mess with markets, and is tied to people’s relationships, showing how its use has changed from traditional to more practical reasons for making a living.
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is an opportunistic fungal pathogen responsible for >150,000 deaths every year with a mortality rate as high as 81%. This high medical burden is due, in part, to an incomplete understanding of its pathogenesis. In a previous study, we identified a cryptococcal atypical pleiotropic drug resistance (PDR) transporter, , that regulated antifungal resistance and host interactions.

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Malaria in eastern Indonesia remains high despite significant reduction and elimination in other parts of the country. A rapid entomological assessment was conducted in eight high malaria endemic regencies of Papua Province, Indonesia, to expedite malaria elimination efforts in this region. This study aims to characterize specific, actionable endpoints toward understanding where and when malaria transmission is happening, where interventions may function best, and identify gaps in protection that result in continued transmission.

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Piperaquine (PPQ) is widely used in combination with dihydroartemisinin as a first-line treatment against malaria. Multiple genetic drivers of PPQ resistance have been reported, including mutations in the () and increased copies of (). We generated a cross between a Cambodia-derived multidrug-resistant KEL1/PLA1 lineage isolate (KH004) and a drug-susceptible Malawian parasite (Mal31).

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Aims: To assess whether implementation of the 2019 European Society of Cardiology (ESC)/European Atherosclerosis Society (EAS) dyslipidaemia guidelines observed between 2020 and 2021 improved between 2021 and 2022 in the SANTORINI study.

Methods And Results: Patients with high or very high cardiovascular (CV) risk were recruited across 14 European countries from March 2020 to February 2021, with 1-year prospective follow-up until May 2022. Lipid-lowering therapy (LLT) and 2019 ESC/EAS risk-based low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (LDL-C) goal attainment (defined as <1.

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Unlabelled: is a fungal pathogen responsible for >200,000 yearly cases with a mortality as high as 81%. This burden results, in part, from an incomplete understanding of its pathogenesis and ineffective antifungal treatments; hence, there is a pressing need to understand the biology and host interactions of this yeast to develop improved treatments. Protein palmitoylation is important for cryptococcal virulence, and we previously identified the substrates of its main palmitoyl transferase.

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Understanding how emerging infectious diseases spread within and between countries is essential to contain future pandemics. Spread to new areas requires connectivity between one or more sources and a suitable local environment, but how these two factors interact at different stages of disease emergence remains largely unknown. Further, no analytical framework exists to examine their roles.

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Circadian Biology intersects with diverse scientific domains, intricately woven into the fabric of organismal physiology and behavior. The rhythmic orchestration of life by the circadian clock serves as a focal point for researchers across disciplines. This retrospective examination delves into several of the scientific milestones that have fundamentally shaped our contemporary understanding of circadian rhythms.

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