Presse Med
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For millions of years, invertebrates and malaria parasites have coexisted and to date, malaria remains the most important human parasitic disease. This co-evolution had profound impacts on the movements of early hominids and on the genome of modern humans. ⋯ Over recent years the economic and social costs of malaria have been recognized and more funds have been mobilized than ever before, however further efforts are needed. National programs, international institutions and researchers will need to do better if the preventable deaths of hundreds of thousands of mostly African children are to be averted.
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Tuberculosis (TB), known as the White Plague' is of great significance to humanity for the magnitude of morbidity and mortality it has generated over centuries from the very start of human civilization. In this Review, we will describe the history of prevention (vaccination and management of TB infection), diagnosis, treatment and pulmonary rehabilitation of post-treatment sequelae. The article leads the reader through the main discoveries which paved the way to the modern approach to TB prevention and care. ⋯ Pivotal was in 1882 the discovery by Robert Koch of the aetiological agent of TB, and his pioneering work in culturing the bacillus and developing tuberculin. Also of enormous importance was, in 1895, the discovery of the X-rays by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, discovery which paved the way to the development of the modern imaging technologies. To complement this, the more recent history of rehabilitation of post-treatment sequelae is summarized, given the importance this issue has on patients' wellbeing and Quality of Life.
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Smallpox is an ancient scourge known since the Antiquity. It is caused by a highly contagious airborne poxvirus. This strictly human disease exists in two forms: variola major (Asian smallpox) with mortality of 20-45%, and an attenuated form called variola minor or alatrim with mortality of 1-2%, which only recently appeared in Europe and America towards the end of the 19th century. ⋯ Using molecular approach, it has been discovered that the smallpox virus emerged 3000-4000 years ago in East Africa and is closely related to the taterapox virus from African gerbils and to the camelpox virus, which causes variola in camelids. Today, smallpox virus strains are stored in freezers at the CDC in Atlanta and at the Vector Center in Koltsovo, Siberia. That is why smallpox remains a potential threat to the highly susceptible human species, as a result of an accident or malicious use of the virus as a biological weapon.
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The plague epidemic of 1720-1722 had a profound effect on the history of the city of Marseille. A subject of numerous scientific studies and a source of inspiration for novels, one of the last great European epidemics is well-documented. ⋯ We have completed this historical approach by referring to the study of mass graves of plague victims and will show how the simultaneous reading of two types of archives (historical and biological) can provide better anthropological knowledge of epidemic phenomena. The perspectives of interdisciplinary approaches to past infectious diseases are numerous, notably with the contributions of paleomicrobiology and genomics, and are particularly relevant today's health context.
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Yellow fever is a zoonotic arbovirosis, the agent of which is transmitted by mosquitoes. In humans, this virus can cause hemorrhagic hepato-nephritis, while mild or inapparent infections are common. The catastrophic epidemics that occurred, mainly in the 18th and the 19th centuries, in Latin America and the United States as well as in the port cities of West Africa and Europe, had considerable demographic, socio-economic and political repercussions. ⋯ Risks of epidemics reappeared, in Latin America as well as Africa. In the early 21st century, epidemiologists are worried about these resurgences, especially since we still have no indisputable explanation for the absence of the disease on the Asian continent. Obviously, yellow fever is not a disease of the past.