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Query: UMLS:C0024530 (malaria)
 44,886 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Various measures are taken to ensure the safety of the blood supply. Donor selection begins with education of the public about transfusion-transmissible diseases. Potential donors must answer a questionnaire designed to identify specific risk factors for these infections. The questionnaire is the only line of protection against certain infections for which no testing is performed, such as malaria, babesiosis, leishmaniasis, and Chagas disease. All donations are tested for the presence of antibodies to HIV-1 and -2, HCV, HTLV and syphilis, the hepatitis B surface antigen (HbsAg), the p24 antigen (HIV), and also for HIV and HCV nucleic acids. The introduction of new and improved screening tests for transfusion-transmissible diseases has led to remarkable improvement in the safety of the blood supply, with substantial shortening of the window period for HIV, HCV, and HBV infections. The current challenge of the industry is to reduce even further the small but significant risk of bacterial contamination of platelet components. Finally, some safety measures are purely precautionary, such as the deferral of donors who have traveled to certain countries affected by the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).
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PMID:Blood donor selection and screening: strategies to reduce recipient risk. 1223 32

Babesiosis is caused by a tick-borne hemoparasite that, like malaria, can cause fever, hemolysis, and anemia. Typically self-limited, in the asplenic, immunocompromised, or elderly, disease can be severe or deadly. US cases have been primarily due to Babesia microti; WA-1, which may be related to Babesia gibsoni; and MO-1, related to Babesia divergens. European infections are usually due to B. divergens. North American cases are treated either with quinine and clindamycin or with atovaquone and azithromycin. The latter regimen appears less toxic.
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PMID:Babesiosis: An Update on Epidemiology and Treatment. 1252 91

Human babesiosis due to Babesia microti is an emerging malaria-like infection that is endemic in parts of the northeastern and northcentral United States. The clinical manifestations of babesiosis range from subclinical illness to fulminant disease resulting in death. Prompt and accurate diagnosis is difficult because the signs and symptoms are non-specific. A CBC is a useful screening test since anemia and thrombocytopenia are commonly observed and parasites may be visualized on blood smear. Conclusive diagnosis of this disease generally depends upon microscopic examination of thin blood smears. Babesia frequently are overlooked, however, because parasitemia tends to be sparse, often infecting fewer than 1% of erythrocytes early in the course of the illness. Identification of amplifiable babesial DNA by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has comparable sensitivity and specificity to microscopic analysis of thin blood smear for detection of babesia in blood. Serologic testing provides useful supplementary evidence of infection because a robust antibody response characterizes human babesial infection, even at the time that parasitemia first becomes detectable. The currently recommended therapy for babesiosis is a 7-10-day course of clindamycin (600 mg every 6 h) and quinine (650 mg every 8 h). Recently, azithromycin (500-600 mg on day 1, and 250-600 mg on subsequent days) and atovaquone (750 mg every 12 h) was found to be equally effective in treating adults experiencing babesiosis. This combination also was associated with fewer adverse reactions than clindamycin and quinine. Exchange transfusion is a potentially life-saving therapy for patients suffering from severe disease with high parasitemia (>5%), significant hemolysis, or renal or pulmonary compromise. Babesiosis may be prevented by avoiding areas such as tall grass and brush where ticks, deer, and mice are known to thrive.
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PMID:Babesiosis diagnosis and treatment. 1280 80

A new type of rodent babesia, which resembled Babesia microti but was phylogenetically placed closest, with the highest level of statistical support, to Babesia canis, a canine babesia, was identified in Thai Bandicota indica in Thai provinces to which malaria is endemic. Close watch should be kept on human babesiosis in Thailand.
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PMID:Identification of a new type of Babesia species in wild rats (Bandicota indica) in Chiang Mai Province, Thailand. 1476 71

Hemolysis presents as acute or chronic anemia, reticulocytosis, or jaundice. The diagnosis is established by reticulocytosis, increased unconjugated bilirubin and lactate dehydrogenase, decreased haptoglobin, and peripheral blood smear findings. Premature destruction of erythrocytes occurs intravascularly or extravascularly. The etiologies of hemolysis often are categorized as acquired or hereditary. Common acquired causes of hemolytic anemia are autoimmunity, microangiopathy, and infection. Immune-mediated hemolysis, caused by antierythrocyte antibodies, can be secondary to malignancies, autoimmune disorders, drugs, and transfusion reactions. Microangiopathic hemolytic anemia occurs when the red cell membrane is damaged in circulation, leading to intravascular hemolysis and the appearance of schistocytes. Infectious agents such as malaria and babesiosis invade red blood cells. Disorders of red blood cell enzymes, membranes, and hemoglobin cause hereditary hemolytic anemias. Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency leads to hemolysis in the presence of oxidative stress. Hereditary spherocytosis is characterized by spherocytes, a family history, and a negative direct antiglobulin test. Sickle cell anemia and thalassemia are hemoglobinopathies characterized by chronic hemolysis.
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PMID:Hemolytic anemia. 1520 94

Members of the phylum Apicomplexa are obligate intracellular parasites that invade erythrocytes, lymphocytes, macrophages or cells of the alimentary canal in various vertebrate species. Organelles within the apical complex of invasive stages facilitate host cell invasion. Parasites in this phylum cause some of the most debilitating diseases of medical and veterinary importance. These include malaria, toxoplasmosis, babesiosis, theileriosis (East Coast fever), and coccidiosis in poultry and livestock. In recent years, opportunistic infections caused by Cryptosporidium parvum, and recrudescent Toxoplasma gondii infections in AIDS patients have prompted intensified efforts in understanding the biology of these parasites. In this review, Tobili Sam-Yellowe examines the unifying and variant molecular features of rhoptry proteins, and addresses the role of multigene families in organelle function: the biogenesis of the rhoptries will also be examined, in an attempt to understand the sequence of events leading to successful packaging, modification and processing of proteins within the organelle.
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PMID:Rhoptry organelles of the apicomplexa: Their role in host cell invasion and intracellular survival. 1527 82

Clinical symptoms and pathology observed in the cattle infected with Babesia bovis are quite similar to those of human cerebral malaria. Mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of cerebral babesiosis, however, are still poorly understood because of the lack of a suitable experimental animal model. In this report, Masayoshi Tsuji and his colleagues describe B. bovis infection in severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mice, whose circulating red blood cells (RBCs) have been substituted with bovine RBCs (Bo-RBC-SCID mice). The infected mice not only develop a substantial level of parasitemia, but also show nerve symptoms and pathology similar to those observed in infected cattle.
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PMID:A mouse model for cerebral babesiosis. 1527 16

Prophylactic vaccines can be expected to be one of the major practical outputs of parasitology research. Various groups within Australia have pursued the vaccine objective for several years, with particular emphasis on blood-stage falciparum malaria in man, intestinal helminths of sheep and cattle, cutaneous myiasis (blowfly strike) in sheep, cysticercosis in sheep and cattle, bovine babesiosis, and cattle ticks. Other vaccine programmes are concerned with giardiasis, filariasis, toxoplasmosis, fascioliasis, coccidiosis in poultry, cutaneous leishmaniasis and schistosomiasis japonica. For many years, the only available vaccine against a parasite in Australia has been the attenuated Babesia bovis vaccine produced by the Tick Fever Research Centre of the Queensland Department of Primary Industries. Strategies for achieving molecular vaccines are generally similar within the various research groups. They involve analysis of the immunology and immunochemistry of a model or in-vitro system; development of functional monoclonal antibodies; analysis of antibody specificities in clinically and/or functionally defined polyclonal sera; screening of cDNA or genomic expression libraries; peptide synthesis; identification of an appropriate vaccination schedule involving adjuvants or new recombinant DNA-based antigen delivery systems. Outlined below are five of the major vaccine programmes.
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PMID:Molecular vaccines against parasites. 1546 18

Babesia bovis and Plasmodium falciparum are both vector-borne parasites primarily infecting the erythrocytes of their respective hosts. They have obvious differences, yet the diseases caused by these parasites share many common features. Both have generated a considerable body of research but, perhaps because of the classical distinction between veterinary and medical parasitology, many of the similarities between the two have been neglected. As this review shows however, many of the pathophysiological changes in B. bovis infections are poorly described for P. falciparum - and vice versa. Examples are the roles of lipid peroxidation, neutrophil adhesion and production of tumour necrosis factor (TNF) in malaria, which have been largely unstudied in babesiosis, or conversely the roles of fibronectin, immune complexes, cryofibrinogen and the complement cascade in babesiosis, which have been little studied (partly for ethical reasons) in human malaria. To clarify such questions, it may be that each of these diseases may serve as a partial model for the other.
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PMID:Immunopathophysiology of Babesia bovis and Plasmodium falciparum infections. 1546 1

In common with other developed countries, the United States has placed a great deal of emphasis on blood safety. As a result of careful donor selection and the use of advanced tests, including nucleic acid testing (NAT), the risk of transmission of human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis C virus has been reduced to about 1 in 1.5 million donations. NAT for hepatitis B virus has not been introduced, but nevertheless the risk is low. Attention recently has been focused on emerging infections. NAT for West Nile virus was implemented within 6 to 8 months of recognition of the need to prevent transfusion transmission of this newly introduced virus. Approximately 1000 potentially infectious donations were identified and removed from the blood supply during the 2003 season. Other emerging infections attracting attention include Chagas' disease, babesiosis, malaria, and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
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PMID:Current safety of the blood supply in the United States. 1561 52


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