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)

Various workers, including T. D. Stewart, claim that the aboriginal Americas were relatively disease-free because of the bering Strait cold-screen, eliminating many pathogens, and the paucity of zoonotic infections because of few domestic animals. Evidence of varying validity suggests that precontact Americns had their own strains of treponemic infections, bacillary and amoebic dysenteries, influenza and viral penumonia and other respiratory diseases, salmonellosis and perhaps other food poisoning, various arthritides, some endoparasites such as the ascarids, and several geographically circumscribed diseases such as the rickettsial verruca (Carrion's disease) and New World leishmaniasis and trypanosomiasis. Questionably aboriginal are tuberculosis and typhus. Accordingly, virtually all the "crowd-type" ecopathogenic diseases such as smallpox, yellow fever, typhoid, malaria, measles, pertussis, polio, etc., appear to have been absent from the New World, and were only brought in by White conquerors and their Black slaves. My hypothesis is that native American medical care systems--especially in the more culturally advanced areas--were sufficiently sophisticated to deal with native disease entities with reasonable competence. But native medical systems could not cope with the "crowd-type" disease imports that struck Indian and Eskimos as "virgin-field" populations. Reanalysis of native population losses through a genocidal combination of diease, war, slavery and attendant cultural disruption by Dobyns, Cook and others strongly suggest that traditiona estimates underplayed the death toll by a factor of the general order of ten. This would make for an immediately pre-contact Indian population of some 90-111 million instead of the tradition 8-11 million. Evidence is growing that Indians may have been no more susceptible to new pathogens that are other "virgin soil" populations, and thus their immune systems need not be considered less effective than those in other people. Present-day high mortality rates in Indians of both continents from infectious disease imports may be more socioeconomic than anything else.
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PMID:Aboriginal new world epidemiolgy and medical care, and the impact of Old World disease imports. 79 20

The nature and incidence of infections were studied in two groups of Turkana living in the same area but eating different diets; one consumed milk only and the other a combination of fish and milk. The only apparent and significant nutritional difference between the two groups was mild iron deficiency in the milk drinkers. Episodes of fever, symptomatic infection with malaria and brucellosis, molluscum contagiosum and common warts, episodes of diarrhea, and serological evidence of infection with Entamoeba histolytica were significantly increased in Turkana eating fish. We suggest that this phenomenon may result from a disruption of a long-standing ecological compromise between the all-milk diet of the Turkana and the pathogenic organisms.
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PMID:An ecological interdependence of diet and disease? A study of infection in one tribe consuming two different diets. 735 50

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection. The incidence of this infection has been on the rise in recent times. It is estimated that approximately 6 million new HPV infections are acquired each year in the United States alone, and prevalence data suggest that as many as 24 million American adults--that is, 1 in 5--may be infected with HPV. Unfortunately, there is little public awareness and knowledge about the infection and its sequelae. It is well known that more than 90% of cases of anogenital warts are caused by HPV. HPV has been implicated in cancers of the cervix, vulva, vagina, penis, anus, and oropharynx. The virus is a necessary cause of cervical cancer. HPV DNA is detected in almost 100% of cases of cervical cancer. There have been major strides in recent years in the prevention of this infection and consequently, of diseases related to it. Vaccines are available and licensed in some countries. Two HPV vaccines are available: a quadrivalent (HPV types 6, 11, 16, and 18) vaccine and a bivalent (HPV types 16 and 18) vaccine. Both vaccines show a more than 90% protection against persistent HPV infection for up to 5 years after vaccination. The role of the vaccine in males is still controversial. The vaccination cost, however, is beyond the reach of many individuals in developing countries where 80% of cervical cancer cases of are found. Many countries in Africa are battling with HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, maternal mortality, and childhood illness. Nevertheless, with increased awareness, political will, and engagement by pharmaceutical countries, HPV vaccines may become affordable in these countries.
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PMID:What is the significance of the HPV epidemic? 1830 95