The WHO Global Network for Chagas Elimination was launched in July, 2007, to coordinate global eff orts to eliminate this neglected disease in the next 3 years. Jean Jannin, coordinator of the initiative at WHO’s neglected tropical diseases unit (Geneva, Switzerland) told TLID that the target date of 2010 is “perhaps optimistic” but he hopes the project will substantially reduce the global burd...

The Dahlem Workshop discussed the hierarchy of possible public health interventions in dealing with infectious diseases, which were defined as control, elimination of disease, elimination of infections, eradication, and extinction. The indicators of eradicability were the availability of effective interventions and practical diagnostic tools and the essential need for humans in the life-cycle o...

The increase in life expectancy that would result from the elimination of certain diseases and the resulting change in hospital utilization vary, depending on the disease. In some cases, life expectancy would rise and total days spent in hospital would decline, while in others, the gain in life expectancy would be accompanied by an increase in hospital days. For instance, if mental health disor...

One hundred years after its discovery by Carlos Chagas, American trypanosomiasis, or Chagas disease, remains an epidemiologic challenge. Neither a vaccine nor an ideal specific treatment is available for most chronic cases. Therefore, the current strategy for countering Chagas disease consists of preventive actions against the vector and transfusion-transmitted disease. Here, the present challe...

Disease control by managers is a crucial response to emerging wildlife epidemics, yet the means of control may be limited by the method of disease transmission. In particular, it is widely held that population reduction, while effective for controlling diseases that are subject to density-dependent (DD) transmission, is ineffective for controlling diseases that are subject to frequency-dependen...

The disposition and elimination of phenoperidine was studied in five normal subjects, and in six patients with hepatic disease. Plasma concentrations of phenoperidine were generally higher in patients with hepatic dysfunction. Secondary peaks were observed between 15 and 105 min (particularly in patients with liver disease). In the patients the terminal half-life of phenoperidine was prolonged ...

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly transmissible and economically devastating disease of cloven-hoofed livestock. Although vaccines are available and have been instrumental in eliminating the disease from most of the South American animal population, viral circulation still persists in some countries and areas, posing a threat to the advances of the last 60 years by the official veterinar...