Chronic disease, and particularly cardiovascular disease (CVD), is the major cause of death in most developed countries, despite the downward trend observed during the last three decades. Although CVD is emerging in developing countries, little is known there about comprehensive preventive measures for controlling its expansion. The health care system in Tunisia faces the challenge of increasin...

BACKGROUND Hepatitis A (HAV) and E (HEV) viruses are responsible for enterically transmitted hepatitis. Tunisia is reported to be of intermediate endemicity for HAV and of low seroprevalence for HEV; however, data from rural areas of South Tunisia are lacking. METHODS Sera from 216 asymptomatic pregnant women and from 92 patients with acute hepatitis were collected between October 2014 and No...

Tunisia has a Mediterranean climate characterized by high ambient temperatures for a long period. Thus, one of the challenges to dairy producers is heat stress. The objectives of this work were to characterize the environmental conditions to which Holstein cows are exposed in Tunisia using the Temperature Humidity Index (THI), examine heat stress effects on lactating cows and to suggest potenti...

We report the first intestinal infections in Tunisia with Entamoeba moshkovskii in two healthy adults. Entamoeba moshkovskii cysts were distinguished from those of the morphologically identical parasites Entamoeba histolytica and Entamoeba dispar by specific nested polymerase chain reaction and sequencing.

We are presenting in this volume selected, peer-reviewed, short papers that were presented at the 3rd International Conference on Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS’14) which took place in Djerba, Tunisia, during October 8-11, 2014.