Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause yellow skin, seizures, coma, or death. Symptoms usually begin ten to fifteen days after being bitten by an infected mosquito. If not properly treated, people may have recurrences of the disease months later. In those who have recently survived an infection, reinfection usually causes milder symptoms. This partial resistance disappears over months to years if the person has no continuing exposure to malaria.
Plasmodium falciparum is a unicellular protozoan parasite of humans, and the deadliest species of Plasmodium that causes malaria in humans. The parasite is transmitted through the bite of a female Anopheles mosquito and causes the disease's most dangerous form, falciparum malaria. It is responsible for around 50% of all malaria cases. P. falciparum is therefore regarded as the deadliest parasite in humans. It is also associated with the development of blood cancer and is classified as Group 2A carcinogen.
Tropical diseases are diseases that are prevalent in or unique to tropical and subtropical regions. The diseases are less prevalent in temperate climates, due in part to the occurrence of a cold season, which controls the insect population by forcing hibernation. However, many were present in northern Europe and northern America in the 17th and 18th centuries before modern understanding of disease causation. The initial impetus for tropical medicine was to protect the health of colonial settlers, notably in India under the British Raj. Insects such as mosquitoes and flies are by far the most common disease carrier, or vector. These insects may carry a parasite, bacterium or virus that is infectious to humans and animals. Most often disease is transmitted by an insect "bite", which causes transmission of the infectious agent through subcutaneous blood exchange. Vaccines are not available for most of the diseases listed here, and many do not have cures.
Plasmodium vivax is a protozoal parasite and a human pathogen. This parasite is the most frequent and widely distributed cause of recurring malaria. Although it is less virulent than Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest of the five human malaria parasites, P. vivax malaria infections can lead to severe disease and death, often due to splenomegaly. P. vivax is carried by the female Anopheles mosquito; the males do not bite.
Plasmodium knowlesi is a parasite that causes malaria in humans and other primates. It is found throughout Southeast Asia, and is the most common cause of human malaria in Malaysia. Like other Plasmodium species, P. knowlesi has a life cycle that requires infection of both a mosquito and a warm-blooded host. While the natural warm-blooded hosts of P. knowlesi are likely various Old World monkeys, humans can be infected by P. knowlesi if they are fed upon by infected mosquitoes. P. knowlesi is a eukaryote in the phylum Apicomplexa, genus Plasmodium, and subgenus Plasmodium. It is most closely related to the human parasite Plasmodium vivax as well as other Plasmodium species that infect non-human primates.
The Anopheles gambiae complex consists of at least seven morphologically indistinguishable species of mosquitoes in the genus Anopheles. The complex was recognised in the 1960s and includes the most important vectors of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly of the most dangerous malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. It is one of the most efficient malaria vectors known. The An. gambiae mosquito additionally transmits Wuchereria bancrofti which causes Lymphatic filariasis, a symptom of which is elephantiasis.
The Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology (MPIIB) is a non-university research institute of the Max Planck Society located in the heart of Berlin in Berlin-Mitte. It was founded in 1993. Arturo Zychlinsky is currently the Managing Director. The MPIIB is divided into nine research groups, two partner groups and two Emeritus Groups of the founding director Stefan H. E. Kaufmann and the director emeritus Thomas F. Meyer. The department "Regulation in Infection Biology" headed by 2020 Nobel laureate Emmanuelle Charpentier was hived off as an independent research center in May 2018. The Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens is now administratively independent of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology. In October 2019, Igor Iatsenko and Matthieu Domenech de Cellès established their research groups at the institute, Mark Cronan started his position as research group leader in March 2020. Silvia Portugal joined the institute in June 2020 as Lise Meitner Group Leader. Two more research groups where added in 2020, Felix M. Key joined in September and Olivia Majer in October, completing the reorganization of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology.
Mosquito-borne diseases or mosquito-borne illnesses are diseases caused by bacteria, viruses or parasites transmitted by mosquitoes. Nearly 700 million people get a mosquito-borne illness each year resulting in over one million deaths.
Janet Hemingway is a British entomologist, Professor of Insect Molecular Biology and Director of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM). She also works on advocacy and resource mobilisation at the Innovative Vector Control Consortium (IVCC), and is International Director of the Joint Centre for Infectious Diseases Research, Jizan, Saudi Arabia. She is "the youngest woman to ever to become a full professor in the UK".
Dyann F. Wirth is an American immunologist currently the Richard Pearson Strong Professor of Infectious Diseases at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
William Erle "Bill" Collins was an American parasitologist.
Fredros Okumu is a Kenyan parasitologist and entomologist, who currently works as director of science at the Ifakara Health Institute (IHI) in Tanzania. His primary research interests concern the interactions between humans and mosquitoes.
Disease ecology is a sub-discipline of ecology concerned with the mechanisms, patterns, and effects of host-pathogen interactions, particularly those of infectious diseases. For example, it examines how parasites spread through and influence wildlife populations and communities. By studying the flow of diseases within the natural environment, scientists seek to better understand how changes within our environment can shape how pathogens, and other diseases, travel. Therefore, diseases ecology seeks to understand the links between ecological interactions and disease evolution. New emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases are increasing at unprecedented rates which can have lasting impacts on public health, ecosystem health, and biodiversity.
Flaminia Catteruccia is an Italian professor of immunology and infectious disease at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, studying the interactions between malaria and the Anopheles mosquitoes that transmit the parasites.
Silvie Huijben is an evolutionary biologist and Assistant Professor at Arizona State University. The Huijben Lab uses fieldwork, lab experiments, and mathematical modeling to study antimalarial and insecticide resistance in parasites, such as disease-transmitting mosquitoes. Her work is focused on applying evolutionary theory to produce resistance management strategies to best combat malaria.
Mary R. Galinski is a professor of medicine at the Emory Vaccine Center, Hubert Department of Global Health of the Rollins School of Public Health, and the Department of Medicine of the Emory University School of Medicine.
Dionicia Gamboa is a Peruvian parasitologist and associate professor at Institute of Tropical Medicine Alexander von Humboldt, Cayetano Heredia University. Her research focusses on Plasmodium vivax, a major malaria parasite species in South America.
Global climate change has resulted a wide range of impacts on the spread of infectious diseases. Like other climate change impacts on human health, climate change exacerbates existing inequalities and challenges in managing infectious disease. It also increases the likelihood of certain kinds of new infectious disease challenges. Infectious diseases whose transmission can be impacted by climate change include dengue fever, malaria, tick-borne disease, leishmaniasis, ebola. There is no direct evidence that the spread of COVID-19 is worsened or is caused by climate change, although investigations continue.
Joseph Michael Vinetz is a Professor of Medicine and Anthropology at Yale University, Research Professor at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia and Associate Investigator of the Alexander von Humboldt Institute of Tropical Medicine at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia.
Heather M. Ferguson FRSE, Professor of Medical Entomology and Disease Ecology, at Glasgow University; a specialist in researching mosquito vectors that spread malaria, in global regions where this is endemic, aiming to manage and control a disease which WHO estimates killed over 400,000 people in 2020. Ferguson co-chairs the WHO Vector Control Advisory Group and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2021.
