The World Health Organization and its partners are aiming to eliminate trachoma as a public health problem by 2020. In this study, we compare forecasts of TF prevalence in 2011 for 7 different statistical and mechanistic models across 9 de-identified trachoma endemic districts, representing 4 unique trachoma endemic countries. We forecast TF prevalence between 1-6 years ahead in time and compar...

Although the need to make health services more accessible to persons who have migrated has been identified, knowledge about health-promotion programs (HPPs) from the perspective of older persons born abroad is lacking. This study explores the design experiences and content implemented in an adapted version of a group-based HPP developed in a researcher-community partnership. Fourteen persons ag...

BEN is a primary, chronic tubulointerstitial nephritis characterized with chronic anemia, absence of edema, xantoderma, normal blood pressure and normal findings on the fundus oculi. The disease is distributed in restricted areas in Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Bosnia, Former Yugoslavia. Despite numerous studies on genetic and environmental factors and their possible involvement in BEN, its etio...

Balkan endemic nephropathy (BEN) was described in 1957, and this review gives an account of research forty years later. The etiology remains the main unanswered problem in BEN despite broad investigations conducted into the possible role of genetic factors, environmental agents and immune mechanisms.The evidence accumulated so far indicates that BEN is an environmentally-induced disease. A cont...

Division of Molecular Toxicology, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany Section of Molecular Carcinogenesis, Institute of Cancer Research, Cotswold Road, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5NG, UK Institute of Pathology, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia Department of Biochemistry, Charles University, Prague, The Czech Republic Ecole Nationale Supérieure Agronomique de Toulouse, Laborat...

During the 90s, wars and economic hardship hampered most attempts for serious research in Serbia, as well as in other BEN affected countries. This relative lull in intensive research provided an opportunity for identifying key problems and assessing priorities for future research. The following issues were singled out as relevant from this point of view: 1. What is the trend of BEN? Did it disa...

The term "aristolochic acid nephropathy" (AAN) is used to include any form of toxic interstitial nephropathy that is caused either by ingestion of plants containing aristolochic acids (AA) as part of traditional phytotherapies (formerly known as "Chinese herbs nephropathy"), or by the environmental contaminants in food (Balkan endemic nephropathy). It is frequently associated with urothelial ma...

Background. Drug resistance is a major challenge in antibiotic chemotherapy. Assessing resistance profiles of pathogens constitutes an essential surveillance tool in the epidemiology and control of infectious diseases, including Buruli ulcer (BU) disease. With the successful definitive management of BU using rifampicin and streptomycin, little attention had been paid to monitoring emergence of ...

BACKGROUND Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) is endemic to Europe and medically highly significant. This study, focused on Poland, investigated individual risk factors for TBE symptomatic infection. METHODS AND FINDINGS In a nation-wide population-based case-control study, of the 351 TBE cases reported to local health departments in Poland in 2009, 178 were included in the analysis. For controls,...

The tiger beetle fauna of the Balkan Peninsula is one of the richest in Europe and includes 19 species or 41% of the European tiger beetle fauna. Assembled by their biogeographical origins, the Balkan tiger beetle species fall into 14 different groups that include, Mediterranean, Middle Oriental, Central Asiatic, Euro-Siberian, South and East European, Pannonian-Sarmatian, West Palaearctic, Tur...