Neglected Tropical Diseases

Between late July and early September of 2018, three major league baseball pitchers — all on different teams — came down with hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD), a highly contagious illness transmitted by a virus. (The pitchers were Noah Syndergaard of the New York Mets, J.A. Happ of the New York Yankees and Brad Peacock of the Houston Astros.) While three high-profile cases of the disease hardly qualify as an outbreak, the cases were unusual because the infection is more likely to strike young children than it is adults, according to the Mayo Clinic. HFMD can spread quickly in child care centers, preschools and elementary schools, but outbreaks of the virus have also been reported on college campuses, where the close quarters of dorms and locker rooms mean that more people can become infected. The disease usually affects children younger than 5 years old, but older kids and adults can sometimes get HFMD too, said Dr. Luis Manrique, an infectious disease specialist at North...

In a 38-year-old man who manifested mild symptoms of COVID-19 for 20 days, the novel coronavirus continued to be detected in his organism and to undergo mutations for 232 days. If he had not been given continuous medical care, maintained social distancing and worn a mask, he could have spread the virus throughout these seven months. The atypical case of infection by SARS-CoV-2 was part of a study involving 38 Brazilian patients followed on a weekly basis between April and November 2020 by researchers affiliated with the Pasteur-USP Scientific Platform, a partnership between France's Pasteur Institute, the University of Sao Paulo (USP) and Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) in Brazil. The patients were followed until they tested negative twice or three times consecutively by RT-qPCR. The study was supported by FAPESP. An article reporting its findings is published in the journal Frontiers in Medicine . It serves as an alert regarding the risk of limiting quarantine for CO...

Veteran strategy, information and communications executives to help lead medical equipment provider's fast growth, support of hospitals and patients New US Med-Equip Chief Executives New US Med-Equip Chief Executives New US Med-Equip Chief Executives HOUSTON, Jan. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- US Med-Equip (USME), which helps hospitals across the country bolster their medical equipment, appointed four new chief executives who will help accelerate its nationwide expansion and further its mission to support the important work front-line healthcare workers do every day to help patients heal. As the leading provider of rented movable medical equipment — diagnostic and clinical devices ranging from infusion pumps and patient monitors to ventilators and infant incubators — hospitals are turning to USME more than ever as a partner in the fight against COVID-19. To support the company's rapid expansion and meet growing demand for its equipment and services, US Med-Equip appointed new Ch...

HOLLY SPRINGS, N.C. — From bathroom aids to hospital beds, Dressen Medical Supply is a staple for at-home patient care in the Triangle.   What You Need To Know Dressen Medical Supply is located in Holly Springs The home care industry is seeing a minimum delay of four to six weeks on power mobility devices Ed Dressen says he is seeing an increase in the cost of certain items as high as 50%   Ed Dressen opened his Holly Springs store front in 2003, but has been in the medical supply and home care industry for 41 years. "It's a very rewarding business. We help others recover from injuries and illness and make them feel better," Dressen said. However, over the last year and a half, the supply chain crisis has thrown a wrench in his operation. Dressen says it's caused delays like he's never seen before. "I've always been able to make a phone call and get it in a short amount of time. I've never had to plan out w...

Data from 4 analyses show that individuals treated with the drug achieved non-inferior vision gains compared with aflibercept. The Lancet has published 2 papers that highlight 1-year results from 4 pivotal phase 3 studies of faricimab, an investigational bispecific antibody, in neovascular or "wet" age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) and diabetic macular edema (DME), Roche said in a statement. All 4 studies, which enrolled more than 3000 individuals in total, met their primary endpoints, showing that individuals treated with faricimab up to every 4 months achieved non-inferior vision gains compared with aflibercept, given every 2 months. Additionally, approximately half of eligible individuals on faricimab were able to go 4 months between treatments within the first year, and approximately three-quarters could go 3 months or longer in the TENAYA and LUCERNE nAMD studies and the YOSEMITE and RHINE DME studies. The current standard of care for these potentially blinding co...

Hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) is a highly contagious infection. It's caused by viruses from the Enterovirus genus, most commonly the coxsackievirus. These viruses can spread from person to person through direct contact with unwashed hands or surfaces contaminated with feces. It can also be transmitted through contact with a person's infected saliva, stool, or respiratory secretions. HFMD is characterized by blisters or sores in the mouth and a rash on the hands and feet. The infection can affect people of all ages, but it usually occurs in children under age 5. It's generally a mild condition that goes away on its own within several days. The symptoms begin to develop 3 to 6 days after the initial infection. This period is known as the incubation period. When symptoms do appear, you or your child may experience: A fever and sore throat are usually the first symptoms of HFMD. The characteristic blisters and rashes show up later, usually 1 or 2 days after the fever be...

Abstract Nucleoprotein complexes play an integral role in genome organization of both eukaryotes and prokaryotes. Apart from their role in locally structuring and compacting DNA, several complexes are known to influence global organization by mediating long-range anchored chromosomal loop formation leading to spatial segregation of large sections of DNA. Such megabase-range interactions are ubiquitous in eukaryotes, but have not been demonstrated in prokaryotes. Here, using a genome-wide sedimentation-based approach, we found that a transcription factor, Rok, forms large nucleoprotein complexes in the bacterium Bacillus subtilis . Using chromosome conformation capture and live-imaging of DNA loci, we show that these complexes robustly interact with each other over large distances. Importantly, these Rok-dependent long-range interactions lead to anchored chromosomal loop formation, thereby spatially isolating large sections of DNA, as previously observed for insulator proteins in eukary...

Study area and participants This study was conducted in the Taabo HDSS, located in the south-central part of Côte d'Ivoire. The Taabo HDSS, launched in late 2008, covers a surface area of 980 km 2 and comprises of a small town (Taabo-Cité), 13 main villages and over 100 hamlets with an initial population of approximately 38,000 people. It provides high-quality longitudinal data on all the residents, with particular emphasis on demography (age, sex, education, pregnancy, birth, causes of death, migration, ethnicity, nationality, religion and employment). Data are collected prospectively at the individual and household level, usually done in three rounds per year [17]. The Taabo HDSS serves also as a platform for specific epidemiological studies like the one presented here and, under the leadership of district health personnel with support of the Taabo HDSS staff, interventions were undertaken for specific parasitic infections. The strong link with the health system not only enables...