Amrish Y Baidjoe

Doctors Without Borders

Artemisinin resistance was recently shown to have spread or emerged on the Thailand/Myanmar border. Evidence is accumulating that the parasite clearance time after artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) is increasing in settings in Asia and Africa. It is currently unknown if an extended parasite clearance time after ACTs has consequences for t...

Informing and evaluating malaria control efforts relies on knowledge of local transmission dynamics. Serological and molecular tools have demonstrated great sensitivity to quantify transmission intensity in low endemic settings where the sensitivity of traditional methods is limited. Filter paper blood spots are commonly used a source of both DNA a...

Background Malaria transmission is highly heterogeneous in most settings, resulting in the formation of recognizable malaria hotspots. Targeting these hotspots might represent a highly efficacious way of controlling or eliminating malaria if the hotspots fuel malaria transmission to the wider community. Methods/design Hotspots of malaria will be d...

It is controversial to what degree α(+)-thalassaemia protects against episodes of uncomplicated malaria and febrile disease due to infections other than Plasmodium. In Tanzania, in children aged 6-60 months and height-for-age z-score < -1.5 SD (n = 612), rates of fevers due to malaria and other causes were compared between those with heterozygous o...

Background The unprecedented influx of Rohingya refugees into Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, in 2017 led to a humanitarian emergency requiring large numbers of humanitarian workers to be deployed to the region. The World Health Organization (WHO) contributed to this effort through well-established deployment mechanisms: the Global Outbreak Alert and Resp...

Background: The unprecedented influx of Rohingya refugees into Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, in 2017 led to a humanitarian emergency requiring large numbers of humanitarian workers to be deployed to the region. The World Health Organization (WHO) contributed to this effort through several well-established deployment mechanisms: the Global Outbreak Alert...

On August 25 2017, an unprecedented influx of Rohingya refugees began from Rakhine State in Myanmar into Bangladesh’s district of Cox’s Bazar. The scale and acuteness of this humanitarian crisis was unprecedented and unique globally, requiring strong coordination of a multitude of actors. This paper reflects on the health sector coordination from A...

In the summer of 2017, an estimated 745,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh in what has been described as one of the largest and fastest growing refugee crises in the world. Among numerous health concerns, an outbreak of acute jaundice syndrome (AJS) was detected by the disease surveillance system in early 2018 among the refugee population. This paper...

Background Unrest in Myanmar in August 2017 resulted in the movement of over 700,000 Rohingya refugees to overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. A large outbreak of diphtheria subsequently began in this population. Methods and findings Data were collected during mass vaccination campaigns (MVCs), contact tracing activities, and from 9 Dipht...

Despite continued efforts to improve health systems worldwide, emerging pathogen epidemics remain a major public health concern. Effective response to such outbreaks relies on timely intervention, ideally informed by all available sources of data. The collection, visualization and analysis of outbreak data are becoming increasingly complex, owing t...

On 18 January 2016, the French National Reference Centre for Salmonella reported to Santé publique France an excess of Salmonella enterica serotype Dublin (S. Dublin) infections. We investigated to identify the source of infection and implement control measures. Whole genome sequencing (WGS) and multilocus variable-number tandem repeat analysis (ML...

Background: Malaria transmission in African highland areas can be prone to epidemics, with minor fluctuations in temperature or altitude resulting in highly heterogeneous transmission. In the Kenyan Highlands, where malaria prevalence has been increasing, characterising malaria incidence and identifying risk factors for infection is complicated by...

UNSTRUCTURED Public health professionals in the Eastern Mediterranean region (EMR) have limited access to continuing education, including workshops and conferences in public health. Held under the theme Innovative Approaches: Adapting to the Current EMR Context, the Eastern Mediterranean Public Health Network (EMPHNET) organized and conducted the S...

Introduction Since the identification of ZIKV in Brazil in May 2015, the virus has spread extensively throughout the Americas. Cases of ZIKV infection have been reported in Suriname since October 2, 2015. Methods A laboratory-based surveillance system was quickly implemented according to previous experience with the emergence of chikungunya. Gener...

Background: The first models of malaria transmission assumed a completely mixed and homogeneous population of parasites. Recent models include spatial heterogeneity and variably mixed populations. However, there are few empiric estimates of parasite mixing with which to parametize such models. Methods : Here we genotype 276 single nucleotide polymo...

The spatial heterogeneity of malaria suggests that interventions may be targeted for maximum impact. It is unclear to what extent different metrics lead to consistent delineation of hotspot boundaries. Using data from a large community-based malaria survey in the western Kenyan highlands, we assessed the agreement between a model-based geostatistic...

Background: The first models of malaria transmission assumed a completely mixed and homogeneous population of parasites. Recent models include spatial heterogeneity and variably mixed populations. However, there are few empiric estimates of parasite mixing with which to parametize such models. Methods: Here we genotype 276 single nucleotide polymor...

Dataset 4: SNP, distance and time differences between P. falciparum parasite pairs in the Kilifi population. Differences were computed for all parasite pairwise comparisons. Sample_id and sample_id_x are unique sample identifiers; snps represent the number of snp differences between parasite pairs; km_distance represents geographical distance, in...

Dataset 3: SNP, distance and time differences between P. falciparum parasite pairs in The Gambia population. Differences were computed for all parasite pairwise comparisons. Sample_id and sample_id_x are unique sample identifiers; snps represent the number of snp differences between parasite pairs; km_distance represents geographical distance, in...

Data includes the locus and IPLEX specific primers used in the sequenom reaction to amplify and type the SNPs of interest. Gene product, gene product name; Gene_symbol, gene name; Chromosome, chromosome location of gene; SNP position on chromosome, SNP site; reference allele, 3D7 reference allele; alternative allele, alternative allele; sequence, 3...

Dataset 1: Information on the 276 SNPs genotyped in 177 genes in P. falciparum parasite populations from The Gambia, Kilifi and Rachuonyo South. The columns contain the following information: study_location, site of sample collection; sample_id, unique sample identifier; gene_symbol, gene name (if available); chr_valid, chromosome; coord_valid= ba...

Dataset 5: SNP and distance differences between P. falciparum parasite pairs in the Rachuonyo South population. Differences were computed for all parasite pairwise comparisons. Sample_id and sample_id_x are unique sample identifiers; snps represent the number of snp differences between parasite pairs; km_distance represents geographical distance,...

Background: The East African highlands are fringe regions between stable and unstable malaria transmission. What factors contribute to the heterogeneity of malaria exposure on different spatial scales within larger foci has not been extensively studied. In a comprehensive, community-based cross-sectional survey an attempt was made to identify fact...

Malaria transmission is highly heterogeneous, generating malaria hotspots that can fuel malaria transmission across a wider area. Targeting hotspots may represent an efficacious strategy for reducing malaria transmission. We determined the impact of interventions targeted to serologically defined malaria hotspots on malaria transmission both inside...

Monitoring and evaluation of malaria programmes may require a combination of approaches to detect any effects of control. This is particularly true at lower transmission levels where detecting both infection and exposure to infection will provide additional evidence of any change. This paper describes use of three transmission metrics to explore th...

Asymptomatic malaria infections are highly prevalent in malaria endemic regions and most of these infections remain undiagnosed and untreated. Whereas conventional malaria symptoms are by definition absent, little is known on the more subtle health consequences of these infections. The aim of our study was to analyze the hematologic, vascular and i...

Motivated by the success in malaria control that was documented over the last decade Ethiopia is aiming at malaria elimination by 2020 in selected districts. It is currently unknown if asymptomatic, submicroscopic malaria parasite carriage may form a hurdle to achieve elimination. The elimination effort may further be complicated by possible glucos...

Background. Mass screening and treatment currently fails to identify a considerable fraction of low parasite density infections while mass treatment exposes many uninfected individuals to antimalarial drugs. Here we test a hybrid approach to screen a sentinel population to identify clusters of subpatent infections in the Kenya highlands with low, h...

Extraction and amplification of DNA from dried blood spots (DBS) collected in field studies is commonly used for detection of Plasmodium falciparum. However, there have been few systematic efforts to determine the effects of storage and extraction methods on the sensitivity of DNA amplification. We investigated the effects of storage conditions, le...

Tools that allow for in silico optimization of available malaria control strategies can assist the decision-making process for prioritizing interventions. The OpenMalaria stochastic simulation modeling platform can be applied to simulate the impact of interventions singly and in combination as implemented in Rachuonyo South District, western Kenya,...

Background: Artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) reduces the potential for malaria transmission, compared with non-ACTs. It is unclear whether this effect differs between ACTs. Methods: A total of 298 children (age, 6 months to 10 years) with uncomplicated falciparum malaria were randomized to artemether-lumefantrine (AL; n = 153) or dihy...

In this chapter, we describe the current evidence for the existence of hotspots of malaria transmission. Heterogeneity is a common element of many infectious diseases, whereby infection and disease are concentrated in a small proportion of individuals and not distributed evenly across the population. In malaria this heterogeneity is manifested as s...

Symptoms reported at baseline, by Giardia intestinalis infection status at baseline. (DOC)

Participant flow. 612 children were recruited between February and August 2008 (black line). A second survey was conducted between October 2008 and February 2009 (blue line). Follow-up stopped for all children simultaneously in March 2009 (dotted line). (TIF)

Composition of the supplements. (DOC)

Strobe checklist. (DOC)

Asymptomatic carriage of Giardia intestinalis is highly prevalent among children in developing countries, and evidence regarding its role as a diarrhea-causing agent in these settings is controversial. Impaired linear growth and cognition have been associated with giardiasis, presumably mediated by malabsorption of nutrients. In a prospective cohor...