Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0024530 (malaria)
 44,886 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

This article reports on the health crisis confronting Uganda, which results from the breakdown of disease control. The breakdown of disease control here has led to the reappearance of diseases that were once eliminated. Malaria has come back with full force and now accounts for nearly 20% of all deaths in hospitals. Hospital sources say that 30% of the cases they treat are resistant to chloroquine drugs. Diarrheal diseases have also made a comeback, and UNICEF reports that they are now the second biggest killer and the second cause of hospital consultations. Sleeping sickness has now also reached alarming proportions, with cases in the eastern Iganga district rising from 52 in 1976 to 5000 cases last year. The health ministry also says that it is seriously affecting other eastern, northern, and central regions. Health resources are now overstretched, with only 710 doctors serving 17 million people. Over 1500 Ugandan doctors have gone into exile. AIDS is, of course, of overwhelming concern, with 30% of hospital admissions showing AIDS-related infections. The health ministry is being castigated for failing to come up with effective policies, despite numerous reports and studies in the past few years. And it is also a casualty of drastic spending cuts by the government.
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PMID:Uganda faces health crisis. 1234 55

Humans are hosts to nearly 300 species of parasitic worms and over 70 species of protozoa, some derived from our primate ancestors and some acquired from the animals we have domesticated or come in contact with during our relatively short history on Earth. Our knowledge of parasitic infections extends into antiquity, and descriptions of parasites and parasitic infections are found in the earliest writings and have been confirmed by the finding of parasites in archaeological material. The systematic study of parasites began with the rejection of the theory of spontaneous generation and the promulgation of the germ theory. Thereafter, the history of human parasitology proceeded along two lines, the discovery of a parasite and its subsequent association with disease and the recognition of a disease and the subsequent discovery that it was caused by a parasite. This review is concerned with the major helminth and protozoan infections of humans: ascariasis, trichinosis, strongyloidiasis, dracunculiasis, lymphatic filariasis, loasis, onchocerciasis, schistosomiasis, cestodiasis, paragonimiasis, clonorchiasis, opisthorchiasis, amoebiasis, giardiasis, African trypanosomiasis, South American trypanosomiasis, leishmaniasis, malaria, toxoplasmosis, cryptosporidiosis, cyclosporiasis, and microsporidiosis.
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PMID:History of human parasitology. 1236 71

Concentrations of DDT and its metabolites were measured in water, plants, invertebrates, and fish from lagoons in the Okavango Delta, Botswana (Africa), where DDT has been used for approximately 50 years. The sampling area was sectioned to distinguish spraying for malaria and for African sleeping sickness. Average concentrations of total DDT (sum of DDT and its metabolites) in the Okavango ranged from 0.009 ng/L in water to 18.76 ng/g wet weight in fish. These levels are approximately 1% of those found in piscivorous fish from temperate North America. The dichlorodiphenyl ethylene (DDE) metabolite was the most abundant fraction of total DDT. Although total DDT concentrations were higher in areas treated for malaria than areas treated for sleeping sickness, these concentrations were likely driven by factors other than the historic application of the pesticide. Equilibration with air concentrations is the most likely explanation for these levels. Since the mean annual temperature exceeds the temperature of vaporization of DDT, this research points to the need for reliable transport models. Our results showed that total DDT concentration in fish was best explained by lipid content of the fish and trophic position inferred by delta15N, regardless of DDT application history in those areas. The reservoir above Gaborone Dam, an area downstream of the Okavango but where DDT had not been used, was sampled to compare total DDT levels to the treated areas. The two species (a herbivorous threespot talapia and the omnivorous sharptooth catfish) from Gaborone had levels higher than those found in the Okavango Delta, but these differences can again be explained using trophic position inferred by delta15N rather than by fish size or location.
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PMID:Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane in the aquatic ecosystem of the Okavango Delta, Botswana, South Africa. 1250 41

Optimisation of drug carrier systems and drug delivery strategies that take into account the peculiarities of individual infectious agents and diseases are key elements of modern drug development. In the following, different aspects of a rational design for antiparasitic drug formulation will be reviewed, covering delivery systems such as nano- and microparticles, liposomes, emulsions and microemulsions, cochleates and bioadhesive macromolecules. Functional properties for each carrier system will be discussed as well as their therapeutic efficacy for parasitic diseases, including leishmaniasis, human African trypanosomiasis, human cryptosporidiosis, malaria and schistosomiasis. Critical issues for the application of drug carrier systems will be discussed, focusing on biopharmaceutical and pathophysiological parameters such as routes of application, improvement of body distribution and targeting intracellularly persisting pathogens.
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PMID:Delivery strategies for antiparasitics. 1255 14

This review focuses on the most significant trends in the development of drugs for the treatment of malaria, African sleeping sickness and toxoplasmosis. In the case of malaria, those include new fixed-dose artemisinin combinations, antifolates and new targets in the apicoplast of Plasmodium falciparum. Targets in the treatment of trypanosomiasis are the biosynthesis of glycosylphosphatidylinositol and enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of trypanothione. Efforts to develop a vaccine against toxoplasmosis are discussed as well.
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PMID:The necessity to develop drugs against parasitic diseases. 1261 Dec 73

Molecular, biochemical and genetic characterization of ornithine decarboxylase, S -adenosylmethionine decarboxylase and spermidine synthase establishes that these polyamine-biosynthetic enzymes are essential for growth and survival of the agents that cause African sleeping sickness, Chagas' disease, leishmaniasis and malaria. These enzymes exhibit features that differ significantly between the parasites and the human host. Therefore it is conceivable that exploitation of such differences can lead to the design of new inhibitors that will selectively kill the parasites while exerting minimal, or at least tolerable, effects on the parasite-infected patient.
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PMID:Polyamine biosynthetic enzymes as drug targets in parasitic protozoa. 1265 50

Blood parasites are malaria plasmodia, microfilaria species, trypanosomes (the causative agents of African sleeping sickness and South American Changas disease) and the causative agents of schistosomiasis of the bladder and the intestine. Their geographical distribution, incubation periods, signs and symptoms, microscopic and serological methods are described. In Germany around 1,000 tourists contract malaria every year, mostly travellers to Africa. Over 70% suffer from the life-threatening P. falciparum infection. Only a few days after the onset of this flu-like disease, complications may evolve. The best diagnostic method is the thin blood film. In case of a negative result this procedure must be repeated twice daily. The thick film requires experience. Rapid diagnostic tests can be helpful but are hampered by false negative results. Filaria loa loa may cause skin swellings, involvement of the eye and even the CNS; Wuchereria bancrofti can cause severe lymphedema. West African sleeping sickness (Trypanosoma gambiense) ends up in encephalitis, the East African form (T. rhodesiense) in a polyserositis. Schistosomiasis of the urinary bladder and the large intestine may cause severe diseases of the urinary tract or the liver.
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PMID:[Parasite detection and symptoms of parasitic diseases. 1: Blood parasites]. 1273 20

1,4-Dihydroxy-2,3-dioxatricyclo[8.4.0.0(4,9)]tetradecane and derivatives have been synthesised and their in vitro activity against Plasmodium falciparum (malaria) Ghana, Trypanasoma b brucei (sleeping sickness) TB-1, and Trypanasoma cruzi (Chagas' disease) TC-1, and Leishmaniasis infantum (leishmaniasis) L1 parasite strains has been assessed.
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PMID:1,4-Dihydroxy-2,3-dioxatricyclo[8.4.0.0(4,9)]tetradecane and derivatives with in vitro activity against Plasmodium falciparum, Trypanasoma b brucei, Trypanasoma cruzi, and Leishmaniasis infantum. 1278 Nov 85

Glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) anchor is a membrane attachment mechanism for cell surface proteins widely used in eukaryotes. GPIs are added to proteins posttranslationally by a complex enzyme, GPI transamidase. Previous studies have shown that human and Saccharomyces cerevisiae GPI transamidases are similar and consist of five homologous components: GAA1, GPI8, PIG-S, PIG-T, and PIG-U in humans and Gaa1p, Gpi8p, Gpi17p, Gpi16p, and Cdc91p in S. cerevisiae. We report that GPI transamidase of Trypanosoma brucei (Tb), a causative agent of African sleeping sickness, shares only three components (TbGAA1, TbGPI8, and TbGPI16) with humans and S. cerevisiae but has two other specific components, trypanosomatid transamidase 1 (TTA1) and TTA2. GPI transamidases of both bloodstream form (growing in mammalian blood) and procyclic form (growing in tsetse fly vector) of the parasite have the same five components. Homologues of TTA1 and TTA2 are present in Leishmania and Trypanosoma cruzi but not in mammals, yeasts, flies, nematodes, plants, or malaria parasites, suggesting that these components may play unique roles in attachment of GPI anchors in trypanosomatid parasites and provide good targets for antitrypanosome drugs.
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PMID:GPI transamidase of Trypanosoma brucei has two previously uncharacterized (trypanosomatid transamidase 1 and 2) and three common subunits. 1295 11

Has research on sleeping sickness, i.e., human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), been forgotten? To get an idea on funding, we consulted the Medline bibliographic database for the last 14 years. The number of publications on HAT was stagnant over the study period. By comparison there was a steady increase in the number of publications dealing with malaria. These findings suggest that interest in HAT research waned in favor of other endemics even though government or other funding agencies continued to finance research networks. To illustrate this situation, we present the funding and findings of our multidisciplinary working group in a wide range of domains including sleep, endocrine rhythms, identification of biological markers, research on physiopathologic mechanisms of the host-pathogen relationship, and development on new medications. Over the last 14 years, a total of 1 million Euros was spent to produce 68 publications on Medline, i.e., roughly 15000 [symbol: see text] per publication.
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PMID:[Sleeping sickness: forgotten research?]. 1457 55


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