Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change pp 47–66
This chapter reviews the emerging importance of pollen allergies in relation to ongoing climate change. Allergic diseases have been increasing in prevalence over the last decades, partly as the result of the impact of climate change.
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Increased sensitisation rates and more severe symptoms have been the partial outcome of: increased pollen production of wind-pollinated plants resulting in long-term increased abundance of pollen in the air we breathe; earlier shifts of airborne pollen seasons making occurrence of allergic symptoms harder to predict and deal with efficiently; increased allergenicity of pollen causing more severe health effects in allergic individuals; introduction of new, invasive allergenic plant species causing new sensitisations; environment-environment interactions, such as plants and hosted microorganisms, i.e. fungi and bacteria, which comprise a complex and dynamic system, with additive, presently unforeseeable influences on human health; environment-human interactions, as the consequence of a combination of environmental factors, like air pollution, global warming, urbanisation and microclimatic variability, which create a multi-resolution spatiotemporal system that requires new processing technologies and huge data inflow in order to be thoroughly investigated. We suggest that novel, real-time, personalised pollen information services, like mobile-app risk alerts, must be developed to provide the optimum first line of allergy management.
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The authors conduct an integrated survey of Antimicrobial Resistant Organisms (AMR) in drinking water, wastewater and surface water in three settings in Bangladesh: rural households, rural poultry farms, and urban food markets. Results show that untreated water discharged from rural households, poul
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try farms and urban markets are major contributors to surface water pollution and antibiotic resistant bacteria genes, calling for increased surveillance and monitoring.
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The Lancet October 25, 2022DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(22)01540-9
As climate change’s impacts continue to accrue, countries are persistently making wrong choices that are harming human health.
A desperate global thirst for fossil fuels is worsening climate change, leading to more extr
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eme weather events that have hit every continent, led to thousands of deaths, and caused $250+ billion in damage in 2021.
• People 65+ and children <1 experienced 3.7 billion more heatwave days in 2021 than the annual average from 1986–2005.
• Heat-related deaths shot up 68% from 2000–2004 to 2017–2021.
• Climate change is abetting infectious disease transmission, warming coastal waters and leading to the spread of Vibrio bacteria like the one that causes cholera, and expanding the reach of the malaria parasite.
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Antimicrobials are medicines, including antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, and antiparasitics, that are used to prevent and treat infections in humans, animals, and plants. Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) arises when bacteria, viruses, fungi, and
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parasites no longer respond to these medicines, rendering them ineffective and making infections more difficult to treat. This resistance increases the risk of disease spread, severe illness, disability, and death. Although AMR is a natural phenomenon driven by genetic
changes in pathogens, it is significantly accelerated by human activities such as the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials in healthcare, agriculture, and animal husbandry.
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This review focusses on the interactions between the etiologic agent of Chagas disease, Trypanosoma cruzi, and its triatomine vector. The flagellate mainly colonizes the intestinal tract of the insect. The effect of triatomines on trypanosomes is indicated by susceptibility and refractoriness phenom
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ena that vary according to the combination of the strains. Other effects are apparent in the different regions of the gut. In the stomach, the majority of ingested blood trypomastigotes are killed while the remaining transform to round stages. In the small intestine, these develop into epimastigotes, the main replicative stage. In the rectum, the population density is the highest and is where the infectious stage develops, the metacyclic trypomastigote. In all regions of the gut, starvation and feeding of the triatomine affect T. cruzi. In the small intestine and rectum, starvation reduces the population density and more spheromastigotes develop. In the rectum, feeding after short-term starvation induces metacyclogenesis and after long-term starvation the development of specific cells, containing several nuclei, kinetoplasts and flagella. When considering the effects of T. cruzi on triatomines, the flagellate seems to be of low pathogenicity. However, during stressful periods, which are normal in natural populations, effects occur often on the behaviour, eg, in readiness to approach the host, the period of time before defecation, dispersal and aggregation. In nymphs, the duration of the different instars and the mortality rates increase, but this seems to be induced by repeated infections or blood quality by the feeding on infected hosts. Starvation resistance is often reduced by infection. Longevity and reproduction of adults is reduced, but only after infection with some strains of T. cruzi. Only components of the surface coat of blood trypomastigotes induce an immune reaction. However, this seems to act against gut bacteria and favours the development of T. cruzi.
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Diphtheria is caused by Corynebacterium species, mostly by toxin-producing Corynebacterium diphtheriae and rarely by toxin-producing strains of C. ulcerans and C. pseudotuberculosis. The most common type of diphtheria is classic respiratory diphtheria, whereby the exotoxin produced characteristicall
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y causes the formation of a pseudomembrane in the upper respiratory tract and damages other organs, usually the myocardium and peripheral nerves. Acute respiratory obstruction, acute systemic toxicity, myocarditis and neurologic complications are the usual causes of death. The infection can also affect the skin (cutaneous diphtheria). More rarely, it can affect mucous membranes at other non-respiratory sites, such as genitalia and conjunctiva.
C. diphtheriae is transmitted from person to person by intimate respiratory and direct contact; in contrast, C. ulcerans and C. pseudotuberculosis are zoonotic infections, not transmitted person-to-person. The incubation period of C. diphtheriae is two to five days (range 1– 10 days). A person is infectious as long as virulent bacteria are present in respiratory secretions, usually two weeks without antibiotics, and seldom more than six weeks. In rare cases, chronic carriers may shed organisms for six months or more. Skin lesions are often chronic and infectious for longer periods. Effective antibiotic therapy (penicillin or erythromycin) promptly terminates shedding in about one or two days.
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Leptospirosis is a bacterial zoonotic disease of worldwide importance, though relatively neglected in many African countries including sub Saharan Africa that is among areas with high burden of this disease. The disease is often mistaken for other febrile illnesses such as dengue, malaria, rickettsi
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oses and enteric fever. Leptospirosis is an occupational disease likely to affect people working in environments prone to infestation with rodents which are the primary reservoir hosts of this disease. Some of the populations at risk include: sugarcane plantation workers, wetland farmers, fishermen and abattoir workers. In this study we investigated the prevalence of antibodies against Leptospira among sugarcane plantation and factory workers, fishing communities as well as among rodents and shrews in domestic and peridomestic environments within the study areas.
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Mycetoma is a slow-growing bacterial or fungal infection, most often of the foot, that may spread to other parts of the body and can cause severe deformity. It is a debilitating disease that most often affects poor people in rural areas with limited access to health care.
Mycetoma is a chronic, progressively destructive morbid inflammatory disease usually of the foot but any part of the body can be affected. Infection is most probably acquired by traumatic inoculation of certain fungi or bacteria into the subcutaneous tissue. Mycetoma was described in the modern l
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iterature in 1694 but was first reported in the mid-19th century in the Indian town of Madura, and hence was initially called Madura foot.
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El pian es una treponematosis endémica, un grupo de infecciones bacterianas crónicas causadas por espiroquetas del género Treponema, entre las que se encuentran también la sífilis endémica (bejel) y el mal de pinto. El pian es la más frecuente de las tres.
Le pian fait partie d’un groupe d’infections bactériennes chroniques que l’on désigne couramment par le terme « tréponématoses endémiques ». Ces maladies sont dues à des bactéries spiralées appartenant au genre Treponema, qui comprend aussi la syphilis endémique (béjel) et la pinta
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. Le pian est la plus courante de ces trois infections.
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Фрамбезия относится к группе хронических бактериальных инфекций, в совокупности называемых эндемическими трепонематозами. Возбудителями этих заболеваний, к кот
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рым также относятся эндемический сифилис (беджель) и пинта, являются спиралевидные бактерии рода Treponema. Фрамбезия — самая распространенная из этих трех инфекций.
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حقائق رئيسية
الداء العليقي هو مرض مزمن مشِّوه وموهِّن من أمراض الأطفال المعدية.
يصيب هذا المرض الجلد والعظام والغضاريف. ويُعتقد في الوقت الحالي أن الإنسان هو المست
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ودع الوحيد لهذا المرض الذي ينتقل من شخص إلى آخر.
يعالج الداء العليقي بجرعة فموية واحدة من مضاد حيوي رخيص يسمى أزيثروميسين.
يوجد حالياً 15 بلداً يُعرف أنه موطون بالداء العليقي.
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Front Chem. 2021; 9: 622286.
Published online 2021 Mar 12. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2021.622286
Yaws is a non-venereal endemic treponemal infection caused by Treponema pallidum sub-species pertenue, a bacterium closely related to Treponema pallidum ssp. pallidum, the agent of venereal syphilis. Yaws predominantly affects children living in tropical regions of the world. It causes lesions of th
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e skin, mucous membranes and bones which, without treatment, can become chronic and destructive. There is no widely available test to distinguish yaws from syphilis. Thus, migration of people from yaws-endemic areas to developed countries may present clinicians with diagnostic dilemmas. The other endemic treponemal infections are bejel (endemic syphilis) caused by Treponema pallidum ssp. endemicum and pinta caused by Treponema carateum.
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Mycetoma is a specific chronic, granulomatous, inflammatory disease. It usually involves the subcutaneous tissue, most probably after traumatic inoculation of the causative organism. It has a prolonged, progressive, and indolent course, and, if untreated, it ultimately leads to destruction of the de
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eper tissues and bone, resulting in deformity and disability that may necessitate amputation of the affected parts with all the social and economic implications of this. The disease is characterized by tumefaction, draining sinuses, and the presence of grains.
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Lancet Planet Health 2017 Published Online November 6, 2017 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(17)30141-9
Trachoma is one of the 17 WHO-defined Neglected Tropical Diseases
(NTDs) that affect over 1 billion of the world’s poorest and most
marginalized people. It is caused by the bacterium chlamydia trachomatis.
Trachoma disease
Trachoma is a sequela following infection by the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis (C. trachomatis). The disease is preventable, but still the cause of blindness in 1.9 million people world wide.