The rise in human cases of zoonotic malaria poses a threat to control and elimination programmes in Southeast Asia, and a recent review highlights the need for more information about the vectors involved in its transmission.
Another good news story: a recent article in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases outlines the journey taken by The Gambia to reach the point where the WHO has declared that the eye disease, trachoma, is no longer a public health problem.
Dermacentor reticulatus is a veterinary and medically important tick with an expanding geographic range, and as such, in-depth monitoring of its distribution in the Czech Republic, and surveillance of the vector-borne diseases it transmits, is especially crucial.
A recent study in Senegal looks at the financial impact of livestock schistosomiasis, highlighting that loss of earnings and reduced productivity is an outcome of both human and livestock schistosomiasis. A One Health approach is needed to understand the true socio-economic impact of schistosomiasis and to help design multi-sector coordinated elimination efforts.
Two main methods are key for preventing malaria and these include bed net use and indoor spraying with insecticides. However, with the increased switching in mosquito behaviour from indoor to outdoor biting and changes in biting time (dawn and at dusk) these are not enough as these outdoor mosquitoes are left untargeted. For elimination to be achieved, new and innovative techniques are more than needed to complement bednets and indoor spraying.