Tuberculosis is one of the three leading infectious diseases, HIV and Malaria being the other two, accounting for more than 40% of all mortality making it to one of the world’s deadliest communicable diseases [1]. TB is also the major cause of death among people living with HIV [2-4]. The emergence of drug-resistant TB strains poses further formidable challenges for effective TB control, as it ...

Community-acquired pneumonia is the leading cause of hospital admission for infectious disease in Europe, and a major cause of morbidity and mortality. According to the results of Global Burden of Disease study, in the World Health Organization European region, community-acquired pneumonia accounted for 230000 (2.3%) deaths and 2.2 million (1.5%) disability-adjusted life-years in 2010, and was ...

Background Norovirus places a substantial burden on healthcare systems, arising from infected patients, disease outbreaks, beds kept unoccupied for infection control, and staff absences due to infection. In settings with high rates of bed occupancy, opportunity costs arise from patients who cannot be admitted due to beds being unavailable. With several treatments and vaccines against norovirus ...

Pharmacometricians are virtually nonexistent in Africa and the developing world. The unrelenting burden of infectious diseases, which are often treated using medicines with narrow effectiveness and safety dose ranges, and the growing prevalence and recognition of non-communicable diseases represent significant threats for the patients, although affording an opportunity for advancing science. Th...

The “Global Guidelines for the Prevention of Surgical Site Infection” includes a list of 29 concrete recommendations distilled by 20 of the world’s leading experts from 26 reviews of the latest evidence. The recommendations were also published today in “The Lancet Infectious Diseases” and are designed to address the increasing burden of health care associated infections on both patients and hea...

For the 2016 end-of-the-year editorial, the PLOS Medicine editors asked 7 global health leaders to discuss developments relevant to the equitable provision of medical care to all populations. The result is a collection of expert views on ethical trial design, research during outbreaks, high-burden infectious diseases, diversity in research and protection of migrants.

BACKGROUND Unlike US-bound refugees, asylum seekers (asylees) apply for asylum while residing in the United States and are not provided a medical screening. Infectious disease burden and vaccination needs have not been described among US asylees. METHODS We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 630 asylees and 151 refugees referred to the District of Columbia (DC) Department of Health scr...

BACKGROUND Although tuberculosis (TB) incidence has been decreasing in the European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA) in the last decades, specific subgroups of the population, such as migrants, remain at high risk of TB. This study is based on the report 'Key Infectious Diseases in Migrant Populations in the EU/EEA' commissioned by The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. ...

The primary aim of this review was to evaluate the state of knowledge of the geographical distribution of all infectious diseases of clinical significance to humans. A systematic review was conducted to enumerate cartographic progress, with respect to the data available for mapping and the methods currently applied. The results helped define the minimum information requirements for mapping infe...

Cancers affect all communities worldwide. There are, however, marked differences in the prevalence and types of cancers among communities. While the total cancer burden remains the highest in affluent societies, less developed economies are closing the gap very rapidly. As developing countries succeed in achieving lifestyles similar to those in advanced economies, they will also encounter much ...