Microorganisms are a necessary part of everyday life. Many, known as resident or normal flora, adapt and live peacefully with the human body, providing benefits such as vitamin production or cellulose digestion in the intestines, and protection from disease-producing pathogens. Transient flora may stay for weeks to months but do not remain permanently because of fierce competition from resident...

Human population growth, technological advances, and changing social behaviors lead to the selection of new microbial pathogens. Antimicrobial drugs, vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments for emerging infectious diseases must be developed. The selective forces that drive the emergence of new infectious diseases, and the implications for our survival, are just beginning to be understood.

This book is a collection of short articles written by the participants of a research workshop held in Poznan, Poland, in September 2000. The workshop, supported by NATO Scientific Affairs, focused on the three major larval cestode diseases of humans: Taenia solium neurocysticercosis, Echinococcus granulosus cystic hydatidosis, and E. multilocularis alveolar hydatidosis. The format and depth of...

Infectious diseases represent a major health problem worldwide, both in terms of morbidity and mortality. A complex combination of environmental, pathogen and host genetic factors plays a role in determining both susceptibility to particular microbes and the course of infection. Numerous studies have now mapped and identified relevant genes using a variety of both family-based and population-ba...

To the Editor: The review on the importance of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) in infectious diseases by Singh et al. (Emerg Infect Dis 1997;3:41-9) failed to mention the potential role of human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DM in conferring susceptibility to infectious diseases. HLA-DM is an MHC class II-like molecule essential for normal antigen processing and presentation (1). HLA-DM ha...

This is a very useful book and has been written for and is being issued by the Association of Preparatory Schools. The book is written mainly for masters of schools, and the clinical picture is chiefly dealt with. There is also an excellent chapter by Mr. Dayne on infectious eye diseases and on ringworm by Dr. Aldersmith. The authors are respectively medical officers to Wellington and Clifton C...

Patterns of sexually transmitted infections in adolescents and youths in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania BMC Infectious Diseases 2006, 6:22 doi:10.1186/1471-2334-6-22 Guerino Chalamilla ([email protected]) Judica Mbwana ([email protected]) Fred Mhalu ([email protected]) Eunice Mmari ([email protected]) Mtebe Majigo ([email protected]) Andrew Swai ([email protected]) Willy Urassa (wura...

A spectrum of blood-borne infectious agents is transmitted through transfusion of infected blood donated by apparently healthy and asymptomatic blood donors. The diversity of infectious agents includes hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV-1/2), human T-cell lymphotropic viruses (HTLV-I/II), Cytomegalovirus (CMV), Parvovirus B19, West Nile Virus (...

Depending on intensity and extent occurrence of infectious diseases can be distinguished accordingly: Sporadic – isolated cases of disease without obvious epidemiological connections Epidemical – mass occurrence of infectious disease in mutual epidemiological connection taking place in a limited territory for a certain amount of time. When two or more cases of disease occur in one family or hou...