Since recently, the burden of metabolic syndrome (MetS) and chronic non-communicable diseases (CNCDs) is emerging alarmingly in low income countries. Metabolic syndrome is defined as the presence of three or more of the following components: central obesity, hypertension, hypertriglyceridemia, impaired fasting blood glucose level and low level of high-density lipoprotein (HDL). This has led to ...

Cereal foods fermented by lactic acid bacteria are staples in many countries around the world particularly in developing countries, but some aspects of the nutritional and health benefits of traditional fermented foods in developing countries have not been sufficiently investigated compared to fermented foods in high-income countries. Today, malnutrition worldwide is characterized by a double b...

Individuals respond differently to infectious diseases. Even among inbred mice that are presumed to be genetically identical, the response to a microbial pathogen is variable, which is generally thought to reflect experimental inconsistencies, technical errors, and stochastic processes. Here we describe the remarkable observation that the variability of Helicobacter pylori colonization density ...

Awareness of the subspecialty of infectious diseases in obstetrics and gynecology is low among United States residents and residency directors. Objective. Given the burden of infectious diseases on women's health, we sought to assess current awareness, interest, and perceived value of the subspecialty of infectious diseases in obstetrics and gynecology among current United States obstetrics and...

Prisoners have disproportionate health care needs. Meeting those needs in a prison environment is challenging, especially in such resource-poor countries as Haiti. Even so, before the January 2010 earthquake, local and international organizations, in collaboration with the Haitian government, had been making significant progress to provide for the health needs of prisoners. The effort screened ...

The Global Burden of Disease Study(GBDS) estimates that infectious diseases were responsible for 22% of all deaths and 27% of disability-adjusted life years (DALYS ) worldwide according to WHO [1]. Antimicrobial resistance among clinically important bacteria is widely acknowledged as a major global public health threat [2]. Most of the currently used antimicrobial drugs are associated with adve...

Despite the double burden of infectious and chronic non-communicable diseases in Africa, health care expenditure disproportionately favours infectious diseases. In this paper, we examine quantitatively the extent of this disproportionate access to diagnoses and treatment of diabetes, hypertension and malaria in Ghana. A total of 220 health facilities was surveyed across the country in 2011. Fin...

The annual occurrence of many infectious diseases remains a constant burden to public health systems. The seasonal patterns in respiratory disease incidence observed in temperate regions have been attributed to the impact of environmental conditions on pathogen survival. A model describing the transmission of an infectious disease by means of a pathogenic state capable of surviving in an enviro...

Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) is the most common bacterial etiology of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in adults, a leading cause of death. The majority of pneumococcal CAP is diagnosed by blood culture, which likely underestimates the burden of disease. The 2007 CAP guidelines recommend routine use of the rapid pneumococcal urinary antigen (UAg) test. To assess the how pneumococca...

Undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies contribute substantially to the global burden of disease (Ezzati and others 2002). Impoverished communities experience high rates of undernutrition and increased exposure to infectious diseases caused by crowding and inadequate sanitation. Women of reproductive age and children experience devastating health consequences as a result of limited resour...