One in four Americans in the hospital right now has a urinary catheter. One percent of them will get a urinary tract infection from that catheter. All of those will require antibiotics. A few may suffer life-threatening complications.

Though little known to most Americans, lymphatic filariasis, trachoma, leishmaniasis, onchocerciasis, schistosomiasis and other so-called neglected tropical diseases are responsible for severe health burdens, especially among the world’s poorest people.

Large numbers of the poorest Americans living in the United States are suffering from some of the same parasitic infections that affect the poor in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, says the Editor-in-Chief of PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that a controversial phenomenon known as antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) of infection is suppressed by C1q, a blood-borne immune system compound.

Researchers have created a new approach for studying resistance to Neuraminidase Inhibitors (NI) in influenza. The study, published December 7 in PLoS Computational Biology, combines data from influenza infections of human volunteers with a mathematical model which estimates the expected number of newly generated resistant infections.

Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch have discovered how a key protein switch allows Chikungunya Virus (CHIKV) to spread to new vectors. The study, published December 7 in PLoS Pathogens, explains how the virus has increased its ability to infect and be transmitted by the Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus.

Known in America chiefly as the bane of hikers, the single-celled intestinal parasite Giardia lamblia is a major cause of diarrheal illness worldwide with estimates of 100 million infections a year. The parasite colonizes the upper small intestine by fastening to the microvillus brush border of intestinal cells.

Sri Lankans infected with lymphatic filariasis (also known as elephantiasis) experience severe loss of income, social isolation, and devastating stigma resulting in emotional distress, delayed diagnosis, and avoidance of treatment.

University of Idaho researchers are crossing academic and geographical bounds to develop more effective defenses against Staphylococcus aureus bacteria and other deadly pathogens.

Animals like plants, can build tolerance to infections at a genetic level, and these findings could provide a better understanding of the epidemiology and evolution of infectious disease, according to evolutionary biologists.

In hopes of combating the growing scourge of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, in particular drug-resistant staph bacteria, a team of scientists from the Scripps Research Institute has designed a new type of vaccine that could one day be used in humans to block the onset of infection.

The international humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières has witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of patients with the parasitic disease visceral leishmaniasis (“kala azar”) admitted to its treatment center in Somalia. The disease is transmitted by sand flies and causes fever, weight loss, anemia, and enlargement of the liver and spleen.