An ento-epidemiological model reveals that what made the Zika virus a public health problem in Feira de Santana, Brazil, was a surprisingly high attack rate coupled with a low risk of Microcephaly per challenged pregnancy.
Local human movement into mosquito habitats around forest edges intensifies interactions between pathogens, insects and people, increasing exposure risks to the zoonotic malaria Plasmodium knowlesi in Malaysian Borneo.
A field study coupled with a molecular analysis demonstrates that using hematophagous flies as 'flying syringes' could be used to investigate blood-borne pathogen diversity in wild vertebrates and act as an early detection tool of zoonotic pathogens.
Evidence that the small GUY1 protein is a strong candidate for being a male-determining factor is provided via the establishment of Guy1 transgenic lines of mosquitoes that confer complete and stable female lethality.
Mechanistic, trait-based models for transmission of West Nile virus and observed incidence of human West Nile disease cases in the US both show optimal transmission at 24-25°C.
Accounting for nonlinear responses to temperature is critical for accurately predicting how Ross River virus and other mosquito-borne diseases will respond to climate change and detecting the effects of temperature on disease transmission.
Stochastic models able to reproduce both incidence and seroprevalence data for Zika outbreaks in the Pacific Islands estimate that the basic reproduction number (R0) is between 1.5 and 4.1.
Parasite variants associated with severe malaria do not have an intrinsic growth or survival advantage in vivo, which indicates that a change in host environment is required for their selection.
Controlled human malaria infection model allows the study of gametocyte biology and dynamics providing novel insights and tools in malaria transmission and elimination efforts.
How large-scale single mosquito metatranscriptomics can define the mosquito’s complex microbiota and its blood meal sources, and contribute critical epidemiological information needed to control vector borne disease transmission, is shown.
