Marzieh Ghiasi

As posted in Neglected Tropical Diseases Society

Science Daily reports of a recent study in the PLoS showing that almost 7 million pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa are infected with hookworms and at risk for anemia. According to the study, completed through systemic investigation of literature, 37.7 million women in the region, and millions more in Asia and South America, remain infected with hookworms due to poor antihelminthic treatment options.

The research corroborates a strong link between blood loss due to intestinal hookworm infections and low hemoglobin levels. Anemia can lead to poor health conditions in mothers and maternal death and can slow fetal growth and development, leading to low birth-weight which is associated with infant morality.

Commenting on the impact of this study, the leading author, Simon Brooker of KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Collaborative Programme in Nairobi, Kenya told SciDev “We hope this will prompt the WHO, international agencies and national governments to further consider deworming in maternal health packages”.

As posted in Neglected Tropical Diseases Society

The New Scientist reports of a recently released publication by Chenin et al. suggesting that parasitic infections in co-endemic regions may account for the greater rates of HIV-1 infections in these regions.

“Evan Secor of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and his colleagues infected macaques with schistosomes, parasitic worms that infect millions of people in Africa each year. Infected and uninfected macaques were injected with simian-human immunodeficiency virus (SHIV) via the rectum. Only about 1/20th the amount of virus was needed to cause SHIV infection in monkeys with worms compared with those without the parasite.”

This follows earlier reports (Hotez et al., 2006) which have suggested that immune systems compromised by tropical infections may lead to increased susceptibility to other infections and create a breeding ground for new epidemics. Both articles note, however, that despite the significant epidemiological overlap between the NTDs and HIV/AIDs, malaria and TB, these links have been largely overlooked. A quick survey of literature attests to that.