Franco Fernández-Guardiola, Paola Gazmuri, Diego Sandoval-Vargas
et al.
ABSTRACT Background Intestinal parasitic infections are a preventable public health burden and a marker of WASH-related inequities, especially among migrants in precarious conditions. Objectives To estimate prevalence, parasite spectrum, and factors among migrant adults and children in Arica, Chile. Methods Cross-sectional study (2021- 2023) using clinical and survey records from a community programme. Stool microscopy used the Burrows sedimentation method on three samples; paediatric testing included the Graham tape test, modified Ziehl-Neelsen staining, and a Cryptosporidium rapid test. Associations were assessed with bivariate tests and univariate logistic regression. Findings Of 345 participants, 68.1% were parasite-positive; 65.5% had polyparasitism. The most common parasites were Entamoeba coli (31.1%), Giardia duodenalis (30.6%), Entamoeba histolytica/dispar (27.7%), and Enterobius vermicularis (20.0%). Living in shared dwellings increased infection odds (OR 2.76); indoor animals (OR 2.18) and livestock ownership (OR 3.12) also increased risk. Conclusions Parasitic infections are prevalent among migrants in Arica, mainly due to environmental and housing vulnerabilities. Programs should focus on sensitive screening, WASH, and housing interventions.
Chloe Moriceau, Sofiane Mohamed, Nolwenn Trillaud
et al.
Background: HIV-1 drug resistance monitoring traditionally relies on Sanger sequencing of targeted pol regions. Whole genome sequencing (WGS) enables the detection of mutations in all coding regions, including minority variants and resistance-associated polymorphisms outside pol, which may impact treatment with novel antiretrovirals. Objectives: To evaluate the clinical performance of a CE-IVD certified HIV-1 WGS kit (DeepChek®, ABL SA) in a routine diagnostic laboratory, and to compare its results with those obtained by a target-specific sequencing assay. Study Design: We retrospectively analyzed 20 HIV-1 RNA/DNA samples from six individuals infected with different subtypes (A1-like, B, CRF-02, G, H) and followed at Caen University Hospital between 2018 and 2022. HIV-1 WGS was performed in five overlapping fragments using the DeepChek® Whole Genome HIV-1 Genotyping kit and sequenced on an Illumina iSeq100 platform. Results were compared to previous genotypes obtained by a CE-IVD target-specific kit. Results: WGS achieved complete genome coverage for 18/20 samples, with subtype assignments consistent with patient history. The assay detected both majority (≥20%) and minority (3–20%) resistance mutations, including gp120 S375T and M434I associated with Fostemsavir resistance. Concordance with target-specific sequencing was high for pol regions, with WGS providing additional data on env and gag polymorphisms. Conclusions: HIV-1 WGS is feasible in a hospital diagnostic laboratory and provides comprehensive resistance profiling, including detection of minority variants and novel target site polymorphisms. Its implementation can enhance therapeutic decision-making in the context of evolving antiretroviral landscapes.
Mpox is an illness caused by the monkeypox virus (MPXV, genus Orthopoxvirus), which infects animals and humans. Genetically, there are two MPXV clades: The Central (1) and West (2), with two reported subclades for each. MPXV can be transmitted between animals, from animals to humans, and humans to humans. Since May 2022, a multi-country outbreak of mpox has been registered in non-endemic regions. After a decrease in the number of confirmed cases in 2023, a re-emerging spread of mpox clade I in Africa and various EU/EEA countries has been registered since mid-2024, and into 2025. According to available genomic data, nonsense or frameshift mutations of MPXV resulting in loss of protein-coding genes and noncoding genes or regulatory regions observed in endemic regions of Central Africa have been associated with human-to-human transmission of the virus. Urbanization caused by population growth in West Africa may increase the risk of human MPXV infection. The infection spread, especially among the countries of the European continent, has led to increased research on mpox prevention and therapy, with data being continuously updated. Monitoring of potential animal reservoirs and exploring new transmission routes are important. Over time, the MPXV has evolved by accumulating genome mutations, contributing to its adaptability and easier human-to-human transmission.
Sanjana Pant, Bijay Ranjan Mirdha, Govind Makharia
et al.
Abstract Background Growing evidence of chronic low-grade intestinal inflammation in post-infectious functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGID), including functional dyspepsia (FD), have been observed. Present study aimed to investigate the role of enteric parasitic infestations along with Helicobacter pylori and associated inflammatory cellular components among FD patients. Methods Prospective observational study included 183 adult patients with symptoms of FD consistent with the ROME IV criteria. All these patients were subjected to clinical evaluation, routine blood tests, and stool sample analyses for parasitological examination. Upper gastrointestinal endoscopic biopsy samples were examined for the presence of H. pylori and to extrapolate cellular components of low-grade inflammation. Results Among the 183 individuals, (85/183) 46.4% and (98/183) 53.6% belonged to the subtype post-prandial distress syndrome (PPDS) and epigastric pain syndrome (EPS) respectively. 46/183 (25.14%) of the stool samples tested positive for parasites, most common being Blastocystis species. The distribution of Blastocytis cells were 14/85 (16.47%) for PPDS and 16 (16.32%) for EPS patients. Histopathological analysis revealed significantly elevated duodenal mast cells and their degranulation among 85.24% and 76.5% FD patients respectively whereas, duodenal eosinophilia, duodenal eosinophil degranulation, and duodenal intra-epithelial lymphocytosis were observed in 3.28%, 15.3%, 1.7% respectively. Patients of the EPS subtype with intestinal parasitosis had elevated duodenal mast cell count, albeit statistically non-significant (p value = 0.078). There was no significant correlation between intestinal parasitosis or H. pylori with any of the clinical parameters examined, other than intestinal parasitosis with anemia (PPDS, p-value < 0.02). Conclusion Presence of duodenal mast cells along with the presence of Blastocystis cells in some of the FD patients suggests their potential involvement in symptom generation, albeit lack of experimental studies. Our findings also give impetus to further understand the complex interplay between elevated duodenal mast cell count and mast cell degranulation with FD symptoms. Disclosures All Authors: No reported disclosures
Etienne Daum, Benedikt Berlitz, Steffen Deck
et al.
In conventional transmon qubits, decoherence is dominated by a large number of parasitic two-level systems (TLS) residing at the edges of its large area coplanar shunt capacitor and junction leads. Avoiding these defects by improvements in design, fabrication and materials proved to be a significant challenge that so far led to limited progress. The merged-element transmon qubit (''mergemon''), a recently proposed paradigm shift in transmon design, attempts to address these issues by engineering the Josephson junction to act as its own shunt capacitor. With its energy mostly confined within the junctions, efforts required to improve qubit coherence can be concentrated on the junction barrier, a potentially easier to control interface compared to exposed circuit areas. Incorporating an additional aluminium deposition and oxidation into the in-situ bandaged Niemeyer-Dolan technique, we were able to fabricate flux-tunable mergemon qubits achieving mean $T_{1}$ relaxation times of up to $130μs$ ($Q \approx 3.3 \times 10^{6}$). TLS spectroscopy under applied strain and electric fields, together with systematic design variations, revealed that even for mergemon qubits - despite their significantly reduced footprint and increased junction barrier volume - careful design considerations are still essential to avoid coherence limitations due to surface loss.
Vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) are a promising technology to capture and store energy from renewable sources, reducing the reliance on fossil fuels for energy generation. However, during the charging process, the parasitic hydrogen evolution reaction at the negative electrode affects the performance and durability of VFRBs. The evolution of hydrogen bubbles causes the loss of effective reaction area and blocks the transport of reactants. We employ the lattice Boltzmann method to investigate the two-phase flow transport in the negative electrode of VRFBs. Systematic parametric analyses reveal that increased gas production leads to uneven gas removal from the electrode, while an optimal flow rate can effectively remove bubbles and reduce external pumping energy. Additionally, increasing the compression ratio hinders gas removal but enhances electrode electrical conductivity. Overall, the present study provides valuable mechanistic insights into bubble generation at the negative electrode of VRFBs and offers a theoretical reference for designing and optimizing VRFBs.
Per Theodor Cleve is known as a 19th century chemist, credited with discovery of two rare-earth elements. However, throughout his distinguished career as a chemist, he was also a protistologist. From 1863 to 1905, Cleve published prodigiously on protists, authoring over 70 works totaling about 2,500 pages, and he described numerous taxa, especially from the marine plankton. Notably, many of Cleve's works are still cited today. His work concerning the utility of certain protist species in characterizing water masses has been recognized in histories of Oceanography. However, Cleve is not a familiar name to many of us, as he has been consistently overlooked in histories of protistology. Here, first Cleve's life is summarized, and then his contributions to protistology, and oceanography, are reviewed to show his significant, and neglected, contributions to the fields.
Biology (General), Infectious and parasitic diseases
Abstract Background Angiostrongylus cantonensis (A. cantonensis)–induced central nervous system (CNS) infection is a rare parasitic disease. Although global incidence is rising, pediatric cases remain underrecognized. This study aimed to characterize clinical features and evaluate the diagnostic utility of metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) in children. Methods We retrospectively analyzed pediatric CNS angiostrongyliasis cases admitted to a national neurology center in Guangdong, China, between 2017 and 2024. Results A total of 22 pediatric patients were enrolled (median age 1.8 years; male: female = 14:8). Most cases (68.2%) began between June and October; 45.5% had confirmed or probable exposure. Fever was the most common symptom (77.2%), followed by somnolence or lethargy (63.6%) and vomiting (59.1%). No patients reported neck stiffness or hyperesthesia. All patients showed peripheral eosinophilia (median peak 24.0%, IQR 16.0%–36.0%) and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pleocytosis. The initial CSF eosinophil percentage exceeded 10% in 10/22 patients (45.5%), and this increased in 7/22 patients (31.8%) during follow-up. Median peak CSF eosinophil percentage was 17.2% at day 18. Among 10 patients tested for CSF cytokines, 90.0% had elevations, with IL-6 being the most common and associated with higher CSF eosinophil percentages. Serum and CSF IgG against A. cantonensis were positive in 44.4% and 46.7%, respectively. Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) of cerebrospinal fluid was performed in 18 of the 22 patients, and A. cantonensis was identified in all tested cases (18/18, 100%), including four who were seronegative. The median mNGS read counts of A. cantonensis were 2,453 (IQR 353.5–28,641.75), which were not significantly correlated with CSF eosinophil percentages, white blood count, or protein levels. Brain magnetic resonance imaging abnormalities (81.8%) included leptomeningeal enhancement (45.5%), ventricular enlargement (40.9%), and cortical lesions (31.8%). Electroencephalogram was abnormal in 54.5%, mainly showing slowing (50.0%) or epileptiform activity 9.1%. Albendazole was used alone in 13.6% of patients, while 86.4% received combined therapy with corticosteroids. Of the 20 patients with follow-up (median 2.5 months), all recovered clinically and radiologically without relapse or sequelae. Conclusion Pediatric CNS angiostrongyliasis in Guangdong primarily affects rural children during summer–autumn. Clinical signs may be nonspecific. mNGS outperformed serology, especially in early or seronegative cases. Most patients had favorable short-term outcomes.
Kylie Tran, Vinushan Kuganathan, Jessica Lam
et al.
Abstract
Background:
Effective antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) programs must address the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) patients who often experience language barriers and varying cultural beliefs regarding antibiotics. They are at greater risk of receiving suboptimal or inappropriate care, yet guidance to support AMS practices for this population remains limited.
Aim:
To investigate antibiotic knowledge, perspectives, and experiences of CALD patients.
Methods:
A cross-sectional survey was conducted between May to November 2023 at a Western Sydney tertiary hospital. Adult patients of CALD background on systemic antibiotics for more than 72 hours under surgical, respiratory, and geriatric specialties were surveyed on their understanding of their antibiotic treatment.
Results:
Of the 177 patients, median age was 70 years old (21–99 years), and 95/177 (53.7%) were males. Of the 177 patients, 171/177 (96.6%) reported speaking a language other than English at home. While 160/177 (90.4%) patients were told that they were treated with antibiotics, only 67/177 (37.9%) were told about duration, 35/177 (19.8%) were told about the side effects, and 27/177 (15.3%) were given written information. Information was provided by doctors to 125/177 (70.6%) patients, 72/177 (40.7%) by nurses, and 3/177 (1.7%) by pharmacists. Patients preferred to have received information from their doctor 79/177 (44.6%) or any healthcare professional 91/177 (51.4%).
Conclusion:
Improving antibiotic education for CALD patients is essential to address communication gaps. Enhancing knowledge will support appropriate use, improved adherence and outcomes, and promote shared decision-making. Strengthening health literacy in CALD populations should be a priority for AMS programs.
Infectious and parasitic diseases, Public aspects of medicine
Blandina T Mmbaga, John A Crump, Julian T Hertz
et al.
Background We conducted a randomised population-based cluster survey in northern Tanzania to assess care-seeking behaviours in the context of a febrile illness. Our objectives were to determine the most effective points for intervention during initial fever case management and to characterise factors associated with care-seeking.Methods The primary sampling unit, or cluster, was the village, and the secondary sampling unit was the household. Villages were selected in a population-weighted fashion, and households were randomly selected within each village. At each household, surveys were administered to determine hypothetical healthcare utilisation patterns for the following febrile syndromes: (1) fever, (2) fever >3 days, (3) fever with diarrhoea, (4) fever with difficulty breathing and (5) fever with confusion. Descriptive analyses were used to evaluate healthcare utilisation for each syndrome at the level of the individual household member, and multivariable logistic regression models were constructed to identify factors associated with care-seeking at a hospital for fever with difficulty breathing or confusion.Results From February through October 2018, we enrolled 718 households with a total of 2744 household members. Dispensaries were the leading site of care-seeking for fever (n=1167, 42.5%), fever >3 days (n=1318, 48.0%) and fever with diarrhoea (n=1218, 44.4%). In contrast, hospitals were the leading site for care-seeking for fever with difficulty breathing (n=1436, 52.3%) and fever with confusion (n=1521, 55.4%). Households in the highest wealth quartile had higher odds of reporting that household members would seek hospital care for fever with difficulty breathing or confusion.Conclusion In summary, our results suggest that lower-level health facilities, such as dispensaries, play an important role in the initial management of most febrile syndromes. Further research is needed to define the quality of fever case management within such facilities. Finally, our findings provide further evidence that socioeconomic status modifies health-seeking patterns.
Medicine (General), Infectious and parasitic diseases
Homi Yamada, Luu Bao Linh, Tran Nu Hoang Ngoc
et al.
Malaria is a potentially fatal infectious disease that poses a persistent global public health threat. The vast majority of mortality and morbidity in humans is the consequence of infection with either of two species of Plasmodium parasite, P. falciparum and P. vivax, that invade red blood cells. Transmission of these microscopic pathogens occurs via the bite of infectious female Anopheles spp. mosquitoes in tropical regions, including those neighboring the Mekong River. In response to widespread resistance to the first-line antimalarial drug artemisinin in Southeast Asia, in 2017 the World Health Organization launched the Mekong Malaria Elimination Program, aiming to coordinate and advance the six Greater Mekong Subregion countries towards malaria-free status by 2030. Vietnam has been particularly visionary, as long ago as 1991 implementing the National Malaria Control and Elimination Program to address the chronic burden of malaria outbreaks in the country’ southwest corner. Over time, epidemiological factors such as geography, socioeconomic status, and demographics have significantly influenced the stratification of malaria in the Mekong Delta. Therefore, it is imperative to conduct a comprehensive critical evaluation of the efficacy of the ongoing program by comparing national and regional perspectives. Over the past decade, Vietnam’s national program has demonstrated significant progress in achieving the globally established goals for malaria eradication. However, persistent challenges related to resource allocation, staffing by trained personnel, and financial support highlight the need for further improvement if the ambitious 2030 target of malaria elimination is to be met.
Timely detection of illnesses is vital to prevent severe infections and ensure effective treatment, as it's always better to prevent diseases than to cure them. Sadly, many patients remain undiagnosed until their conditions worsen, resulting in high death rates. Expert systems offer a solution by automating early-stage diagnoses using a fuzzy rule-based approach. Our study gathered data from various sources, including hospitals, to develop an expert system aimed at identifying early signs of diseases, particularly heart conditions. The diagnostic process involves collecting and processing test results using the expert system, which categorizes disease risks and aids physicians in treatment decisions. By incorporating expert systems into clinical practice, we can improve the accuracy of disease detection and address challenges in patient management, particularly in areas with limited medical resources.
In medical image analysis, the expertise scarcity and the high cost of data annotation limits the development of large artificial intelligence models. This paper investigates the potential of transfer learning with pre-trained vision-language models (VLMs) in this domain. Currently, VLMs still struggle to transfer to the underrepresented diseases with minimal presence and new diseases entirely absent from the pretraining dataset. We argue that effective adaptation of VLMs hinges on the nuanced representation learning of disease concepts. By capitalizing on the joint visual-linguistic capabilities of VLMs, we introduce disease-informed contextual prompting in a novel disease prototype learning framework. This approach enables VLMs to grasp the concepts of new disease effectively and efficiently, even with limited data. Extensive experiments across multiple image modalities showcase notable enhancements in performance compared to existing techniques.
This dataset represents almost all the harmful diseases for rice in Bangladesh. This dataset consists of 1106 image of five harmful diseases called Brown Spot, Leaf Scaled, Rice Blast, Rice Turngo, Steath Blight in two different background variation named field background picture and white background picture. Two different background variation helps the dataset to perform more accurately so that the user can use this data for field use as well as white background for decision making. The data is collected from rice field of Dhaka Division. This dataset can use for rice leaf diseases classification, diseases detection using Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition for different rice leaf disease.
Danger requires a strong rapid response. Speedy triggers are prone to false signals. False alarms can be costly, requiring strong negative regulators to oppose the initial triggers. Strongly opposed forces can easily be perturbed, leading to imbalance and disease. For example, immunity and fear response balance strong rapid triggers against widespread slow negative regulators. Diseases of immunity and behavior arise from imbalance. A different opposition of forces occurs in mammalian growth, which balances strong paternally expressed accelerators against maternally expressed suppressors. Diseases of overgrowth or undergrowth arise from imbalance. Other examples of opposing forces and disease include control of dopamine expression and male versus female favored traits.
Zolzaya Dashdorj, Stanislav Grigorev, Munguntsatsral Dovdondash
In the field of health-care and bio-medical research, understanding the relationship between the symptoms of diseases is crucial for early diagnosis and determining hidden relationships between diseases. The study aimed to understand the extent of symptom types in disease prediction tasks. In this research, we analyze a pre-generated symptom-based human disease dataset and demonstrate the degree of predictability for each disease based on the Convolutional Neural Network and the Support Vector Machine. Ambiguity of disease is studied using the K-Means and the Principal Component Analysis. Our results indicate that machine learning can potentially diagnose diseases with the 98-100% accuracy in the early stage, taking the characteristics of symptoms into account. Our result highlights that types of unusual symptoms are a good proxy for disease early identification accurately. We also highlight that unusual symptoms increase the accuracy of the disease prediction task.
Citrus diseases have been major issues for citrus growing worldwide for many years they can lead significantly reduce fruit quality. the most harmful citrus diseases are citrus canker, citrus greening, citrus black spot, citrus leaf miner which can have significant economic losses of citrus industry in worldwide prevention and management strategies like chemical treatments. Citrus diseases existing in all over the world where citrus is growing its effects the citrus tree root, citrus tree leaf, citrus tree orange etc. Existing of citrus diseases is highly impact on economic factor that can also produce low quality fruits and increased the rate for diseases management. Sanitation and routine monitoring can be effective in managing certain citrus diseases, but others may require more intensive treatments like chemical or biological control methods.
Early detection of retinal diseases is one of the most important means of preventing partial or permanent blindness in patients. In this research, a novel multi-label classification system is proposed for the detection of multiple retinal diseases, using fundus images collected from a variety of sources. First, a new multi-label retinal disease dataset, the MuReD dataset, is constructed, using a number of publicly available datasets for fundus disease classification. Next, a sequence of post-processing steps is applied to ensure the quality of the image data and the range of diseases, present in the dataset. For the first time in fundus multi-label disease classification, a transformer-based model optimized through extensive experimentation is used for image analysis and decision making. Numerous experiments are performed to optimize the configuration of the proposed system. It is shown that the approach performs better than state-of-the-art works on the same task by 7.9% and 8.1% in terms of AUC score for disease detection and disease classification, respectively. The obtained results further support the potential applications of transformer-based architectures in the medical imaging field.