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Emerging evidence over the past decade has implicated helminth infections as important yet stealth causes of adverse pregnancy outcomes and impaired women's reproductive health. The two most important helminth infections affecting women living in poverty in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world are hookworm infection and schistosomiasis. In Africa alone, almost 40 million women of childbearing age are infected with hookworms, including almost 7 million pregnant women who are at greater risk of severe anemia, higher mortality, and experiencing poor neonatal outcome (reduced birth weight and increased infant mortality). Possibly, tens of millions of women in Africa also suffer from female genital schistosomiasis associated with genital itching and pain, stress incontinence, dyspareunia, and infertility and experience social stigma and depression. Female genital schistosomiasis also is linked to horizontal transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and it may represent one of Africa's major cofactors in its AIDS epidemic. There is urgency to expand mass drug administration efforts for hookworm and schistosomiasis to include women of reproductive age and to shape new policies and advocacy initiatives for women's global health to include helminth control. In parallel is a requirement to better link global health programs for HIV and AIDS and malaria with helminth control and to simultaneously launch initiatives for research and development.
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PMID:Helminth infections: a new global women's health agenda. 2484 2

In the search for new molluscicidal plants for controlling the snail vectors of schistosomiasis, laboratory evaluation was made to assess the molluscicidal activity of Agave angustifolia and Pittosporum tobira plants against Biomphalaria alexandrina snails. Results indicated that both plants have promising molluscicidal activity as the LC90 of the dry powder of both plants was 120 ppm. Both plants showed marked cercaricidal and miracidicidal potencies against S. mansoni larvae. The LC90 of both plants (120 ppm) killed most B. alexandrina eggs within 24 h of exposure. The sub-lethal concentrations of both plants markedly suppressed the survival rate of B. alexandrina snails and the mortality increased with increasing the concentrations and the exposure period up to 10 successive weeks. The accumulative toxic effect of these concentrations was continuous during the recovery period. Also, the reproductive rates of exposed snails were greatly affected even through the recovery period. This depression in reproductive ability of snails was accompanied by histological damage in the hermaphrodite glands of exposed snails. Meanwhile, the growth of snails was estimated weekly and it showed great inhibition in exposed snails comparing with the control ones.
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PMID:Studies on the molluscicidal activity of Agave angustifolia and Pittosporum tobira on schistosomiasis transmitting snails. 2601 28

Caused by Trypanosoma cruzi, Chagas disease is responsible for public health problems greater in magnitude than those attributed to malaria, schistosomiasis, or leishmaniasis. A factor in the socioeconomic development of poor countries, Chagas disease can cause death due to a high parasitic burden during its acute phase due and irreversible damage in organs such as the heart, esophagus, and colon during its chronic phase, even when the number of parasites is minimal. For treating Chagas disease, benznidazole (BNZ) remains the drug of choice and, in Latin America, the only drug on the market for treating the disease. However, BNZ has exhibited insufficient activity in the chronic phase of Chagas disease, required administration in large doses, prolonged treatment, and shown a high incidence of adverse reactions (vomiting, rash, peripheral neuropathy, and spinal cord depression), toxicity, and low solubility in water. As an antidote, pharmaceutical technologies have been introduced that can improve BNZ's solubility and dissolution, as well as reduce side effects in light of its bioavailability, all of which can enhance therapy for Chagas disease. In response to that trend, by conducting a literature review, we sought to identify current pharmaceutical technologies used in tandem with BNZ to improve therapy for Chagas disease. Documented techniques include emulsion and microemulsion formation, solutions, parenteral formulas, micronization, and drug delivery systems supported by the development of nanoparticles and cyclodextrins, solid dispersions, and the use of metal-organic frameworks as innovative excipients. Such technologies increase the water solubility of BNZ by 4-25-fold on dissolution and an 85% release with efficacy in only a few minutes, as recorded during a viability experiment with nanoparticle suspensions. That experiment demonstrated the need for a lower concentration of BNZ to kill 50% of trypomastigote forms of T. cruzi, described in terms of the formation of BNZ-cyclodextrin complexes, and modulating and vectoring of the antichagasic by using metal-organic frameworks. Altogether, the promising results of research identified can enable strategies to improve solubility and efficacy of BNZ, as well as therapy for Chagas disease.
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PMID:Technological innovation strategies for the specific treatment of Chagas disease based on Benznidazole. 2945 13

Metabolomics, as an emerging technology, has been demonstrated to be a very powerful tool in the study of the host metabolic responses to infections by parasites. Schistosomiasis is a parasitic infection caused by schistosoma worm via the direct contact with the water containing cercaria, among which Schistosoma japonicum (S. japonicum) is endemic in Asia. In order to characterize the schistosome-induced changes in the host metabolism and further to develop the strategy for early diagnosis of schistosomiasis, we performed comprehensive LC-MS-based metabolomics analysis of serum from mice infected by S. japonicum for 5 weeks. With the developed diagnosis strategy based on our metabolomics data, we were able to successfully detect schistosomiasis at the first week post-infection, which was 3 weeks earlier than "gold standard" methods and 2 weeks earlier than the methods based on 1H NMR spectroscopy. Our metabolomics study revealed that S. japonicum infection induced the metabolic changes involved in a variety of metabolic pathways including amino acid metabolism, DNA and RNA biosynthesis, phospholipid metabolism, depression of energy metabolism, glucose uptake and metabolism, and disruption of gut microbiota metabolism. In addition, we identified seventeen specific metabolites whose down-regulated profiles were closely correlated with the time-course of schistosomiasis progression and can also be used as an indicator for the worm-burdens. Interestingly, the decrease of these seventeen metabolites was particularly remarkable at the first week post-infection. Thus, our findings on mechanisms of host-parasite interaction during the disease process pave the way for the development of an early diagnosis tool and provide more insightful understandings of the potential metabolic process associated with schistosomiasis in mice. Furthermore, the diagnosis strategy developed in this work is cost-effective and is superior to other currently used diagnosis methods.
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PMID:UHPLC-MS-Based Metabolomics Analysis Reveals the Process of Schistosomiasis in Mice. 3276 Mar 65


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