Anopheles, plasmodium, leishmania

Although viruses and bacteria have been known as agents of diseases since 1546, 250 years went by until the first vaccines against these pathogens were developed (1796 and 1800s). In contrast, Malaria, which is a protozoan-neglected disease, has been known since the 5th century BCE and, despite 2,500 years having passed since then, no human vaccine has yet been licensed for Malaria. Additionally, no modern human vaccine is currently licensed against Visceral or Cutaneous leishmaniasis. Vaccination against Malaria evolved from the inoculation of irradiated sporozoites through the bite of Anopheles mosquitoes in 1930's, which failed to give protection, to the use of controlled human Malaria infection (CHMI) provoked by live sporozoites of Plasmodium falciparum and curtailed with specific chemotherapy since 1940's...

BACKGROUND: As of 2015 thousands of refugees are being hosted in temporary refugee camps in Greece. Displaced populations, travelling and living under poor conditions with limited access to healthcare are at a high risk of exposure to vector borne disease (VBD). This study sought to evaluate the risk for VBD transmission within refugee camps in Greece by analyzing the mosquito and sand fly populations present, in light of designing effective and efficient context specific vector and disease control programs...

Current strategies for the mass administration of antimalarial drugs demand oral formulations to target the asexual Plasmodium stages in the peripheral bloodstream, whereas recommendations for future interventions stress the importance of also targeting the transmission stages of the parasite as it passes between humans and mosquitoes. Orally administered polyamidoamine (PAA) nanoparticles conjugated to chloroquine reached the blood circulation and cured Plasmodium yoelii -infected mice, slightly improving the activity of the free drug and inducing in the animals immunity against malaria...

Parasites including helminthes, protozoa, and medical arthropod vectors are a major cause of global infectious diseases, affecting one-sixth of the world's population, which are responsible for enormous levels of morbidity and mortality important and remain impediments to economic development especially in tropical countries. Prevalent drug resistance, lack of highly effective and practical vaccines, as well as specific and sensitive diagnostic markers are proving to be challenging problems in parasitic disease control in most parts of the world...

UNLABELLED: Malaria is transmitted when motile sporozoites are injected into the dermis by an infected female Anopheles mosquito. Inside the mosquito vector, sporozoites egress from midgut-associated oocysts and eventually penetrate the acinar cells of salivary glands. Parasite-encoded factors with exclusive vital roles in the insect vector can be studied by classical reverse genetics. Here, we characterized the in vivo roles of Plasmodium berghei falstatin/ICP (inhibitor of cysteine proteases)...

The interaction of a parasite and a host cell is a complex process, which involves several steps: (1) attachment to the plasma membrane, (2) entry inside the host cell, and (3) hijacking of the metabolism of the host. In biochemical experiments, only an event averaged over the whole cell population can be analyzed. The power of microscopy, however, is to investigate individual events in individual cells. Therefore, parasitologists frequently perform experiments with fluorescence microscopy using different dyes to label structures of the parasite or the host cell...

From 1994 to 1995 four presumably autochthonous malaria cases were diagnosed by blood smear microscopy in Evros Province, northern Greece. Alarmed by these unexpected infections a serological survey was performed from 1997 to 1999 in ten rural villages, including those where the malaria cases had occurred. Among the 1,102 blood samples examined, nine turned out to contain specific antibodies against plasmodial parasites as detected by indirect fluorescent antibody test, including two of the former patients...

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