Categories: Global Health, NTDs, Parasites, River Blindness, onchocerciasis
May 23rd, 2013 12:30 pm ET -
Paul T. Cantey, MD, MPH CDR US Public Health Service
Onchocerciasis, also known as River Blindness, is a neglected tropical disease that causes tremendous disability and suffering for individuals in some of the poorest communities on the planet. It is caused by the tiny parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus, which is transmitted by the Simulium blackfly. The name River Blindness is derived from the fact that the illness is most intensely transmitted to persons along rivers near fast moving water and the parasitic worm it transmits can cause blindness. In addition to causing blindness by invading the eye, the worm can cause debilitating skin disease—called troublesome itch— that can keep people awake at night, result in skin infections, and reduce the ability to support oneself. More than 100 million people are at risk for River Blindness and more than 30 million are infected with the parasite. Working as a medical epidemiologist at CDC, I am privileged to be among the many global health partners who are striving to eliminate onchocerciasis and the pain and suffering it causes for good.
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Categories: Global Health, Malaria, Parasites
January 28th, 2013 12:48 pm ET -
Twenty five years ago, I went to western Kenya as a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officer to study an outbreak of severe anemia. No one was sure of the cause. Was it parvovirus, or exposure to an environmental toxin, perhaps? In the hospital there were five or six sick children to a bed, and they were so anemic that their blood looked more like a pinkish fluid than the rich red to which we are accustomed. As it turned out, there was no exotic cause. I was seeing the ravages of drug-resistant malaria at a time when chloroquine, the routinely used antimalarial drug, was failing globally.
That kind of grim hospital scene is much rarer these days, thanks to the enormous investment in malaria programs in Africa over the past decade and the improvements these investments have made possible. Programs that provide proven interventions—artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs), and indoor residual spraying (IRS)—have achieved a 33% reduction in malaria deaths in the African region and 1.1 million lives saved globally. We have much more to do, but this is a reason to celebrate. As we celebrate, however, we must realize that we are also in the midst of a very fragile situation for three major reasons.
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Categories: Chagas, Global Health, Parasites
June 5th, 2012 2:18 pm ET -
Dr. Susan Montgomery, DVM, MPH
From its labs in Atlanta and around the world, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists have been dissecting insects and the parasites they leave in humans for more than 65 years. The kissing bug, also known as a triatomine, can be infected by Trypanosoma cruzi, the parasite that causes Chagas disease. It is not widespread in the United States, but 300,000 people are infected by Trypanosoma cruzi and have Chagas disease.
Chagas can cause cardiac disease including stroke and arrhythmias, and gastrointestinal disease over time. It can take several years to decades for the infection to take its toll on the human heart and stomach.
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