Guest post by James Edwards-Smallbone, Keele University, UK The malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, is responsible for about 200 million infections per year which impose a high burden of morbidity in endemic countries and is the cause of at least half a million deaths every year, mostly in children under the age of five. Following invasion… Read more »
Victor Brugman (The Pirbright Institute) and Stacey Leech (Public Health England) This month saw a swarm of parasitologists, entomologists, virologists and ecologists descend on the University of Liverpool for the second conference on ‘Vector-Borne diseases (VBD) in the UK’. Recent years have seen vector-borne diseases in Europe increase in range and disseminate into new environments. New… Read more »
In the UK, we take it for granted that we will be able to find a certain place either by using a paper map, road signs or online route planners. However, there are many regions of the world where locating a whole town or village is a challenge because they don’t exist yet on maps…. Read more »
Tuesday 11th November marks Armistice day (also known as Remembrance Day or Poppy Day in the UK), the day in 1918 when on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month an armistice was signed between the Allied Forces and Germany that resulted in a ceasefire on the western front and marked… Read more »
The world of parasites that manipulate the behaviours of their host became even more fascinating this September. A paper published by Charissa de Bekker and colleagues reported findings that begin to unravel the mechanism behind the spectacular ant-brain manipulation performed by a parasitic fungus. The fungus turns its ant hosts into zombies that leave their… Read more »