The transmission routes of trachoma, a blinding eye disease, are still not fully understood. Some evidence points towards transmission by a disease vector – Musca sorbens, the fly that visits eyes to obtain liquid or nutrition.
The parasites causing vivax malaria is known to preferentially invade immature red blood cells by attaching to Duffy antigens on the cell surface. An additional, essential receptor / ligand interaction has now been characterised.
Uniting to Combat’s 5th progress report highlights some of the key achievements made since the London Declarations in 2012 and reminds us to take stock of how far we have come.
Almost all diagnostics have inherent subjectivity. Subjective thresholds and cut-offs are a major source of this and can impact the way we interpret the results.