Maria Eugenia Castellanos

James Cook University | JCU · School of Public Health, Tropical Medicine and Rehabilitation Sciences

Several neglected infectious pathogens, such as the monkeypox virus (MPXV), have re-emerged in the last few decades, becoming a global health burden. Despite the incipient vaccine against MPXV infection, the global incidence of travel-related outbreaks continues to rise. About 472 confirmed cases have been reported in 27 countries as of 31 May 2022...

There is little information about the amount of recent tuberculosis transmission in low-income settings. Genetic clustering can help identify ongoing transmission events. A retrospective observational study was performed on Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from persons living with HIV (PLHIV) and HIV-seronegative participants who submitted sampl...

Background: There is an absence of clinically relevant epidemiological data in regional Australia pertaining to haematological malignancies. Aim: To determine the incidence and geographical variation of haematological malignancies in North Queensland using a clinically appropriate disease classification. Methods: Retrospective, observational s...

Background Insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) are widely used for the prevention and control of malaria. In Guatemala, since 2006, ITNs have been distributed free of charge in the highest risk malaria-endemic areas and constitute one of the primary vector control measures in the country. Despite relying on ITNs for almost 15 years, there is a lack...

One principle of tuberculosis control is to prevent the development of tuberculosis disease by treating individuals with latent tuberculosis infection. The diagnosis of latent infection using the tuberculin skin test is not straightforward because of concerns about immunologic cross reactivity with the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine and envi...

Background. Exposure to an individual with tuberculosis is necessary for transmission to occur. Previously, we developed a score that measures contact between tuberculosis cases and their social networks in an African urban context. This score was built using exploratory factor analysis and identified contact as the conjunction of two domains – set...

Rationale Although households of tuberculosis cases represent a setting for intense transmission of M. tuberculosis, household exposure accounts for less than 20% of transmission within a community. Objectives To estimate excess risk of M. tuberculosis infection among household and extra-household contacts of index cases. Methods We performed a c...

Background: There are large knowledge gaps on the transmission dynamics of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in settings where both tuberculosis and HIV are endemic. We aimed to assess the infectiousness of tuberculosis patients coinfected with HIV. Methods: We systematically searched for studies of contacts of both HIV-positive and negative tuberculos...

Background. Insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs) are widely used for the prevention and control of malaria. In Guatemala, since 2006, ITNs have been distributed free of charge in the highest risk malaria-endemic areas and constitute one of the primary vector control measures in the country. Despite relying on ITNs for almost 15 years, there is a lack...

Background. Insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs) are widely used for the prevention and control of malaria. In Guatemala, since 2006, ITNs have been distributed free of charge in the highest risk malaria-endemic areas and constitute one of the primary vector control measures in the country. Despite relying on ITNs for almost 15 years, there is a lack...

Abstract Background The risk of infection from respiratory pathogens increases according to the contact rate between the infectious case and susceptible contact, but the definition of adequate contact for transmission is not standard. In this study we aimed to identify factors that can explain the level of contact between tuberculosis cases and the...

Plasmodium vivax malaria is a neglected disease, particularly during pregnancy. Severe vivax malaria is associated with inflammatory responses but in pregnancy immune alterations make it uncertain as to what cytokine signatures predominate, and how the type and quantity of blood immune mediators influence delivery outcomes. We measured the plasma c...

Background. There is little information about the proportion of clustering of tuberculosis cases from low-income settings, which can represent ongoing transmission events. Objectives. We investigated the proportion of clustered tuberculosis cases based on genotypic matching in Guatemala and potential factors associated with clustering in HIV-infect...

Background. The risk of infection from respiratory pathogens increases according to the contact rate between the infectious case and susceptible contact, but the definition of adequate contact for transmission is not standard. In this study we aimed to identify factors that can explain the level of contact between tuberculosis cases and their socia...

The immune status of women changes during and after pregnancy, differs between blood compartments at delivery and is affected by environmental factors particularly in tropical areas endemic for multiple infections. We quantified the plasma concentration of a set of thirty-one TH1, TH2, TH17 and regulatory cytokines, pro-inflammatory and anti-inflam...

Directly observed therapy (DOT) is almost universally used for the treatment of TB. Several meta-analyses using different methods have assessed the effectiveness of DOT compared to self-administered therapy (SAT). The results of these meta-analyses often conflict with some concluding DOT is superior and others that there is little or no difference....

Objective: To investigate diagnostic agreement of the QuantiFERON®-TB Gold In-Tube (QFT-GIT) test in adult tuberculin skin test (TST) converters in a high tuberculosis (TB) burden setting. Setting and design: We performed a case-cohort study from 2014 to 2016 in Uganda among residents who were not infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Partic...

Background: Several cohort studies demonstrate that diabetics are at increased risk for active tuberculosis, and poor glycemic control may exacerbate this risk. A higher prevalence of tuberculosis infection at baseline among diabetics may partially explain these results; however, no population-based studies have investigated this association. Furt...

Background: Safety climate involves worker perception about the relative importance where they work and safety climate and has been shown to be a reliable predictor of safety-related outcomes. Methods: The primary objective of this study is to investigate ethnic differences in perceived safety climate among construction workers. Surveys (n = 179...

Background Despite that over 90 million pregnancies are at risk of Plasmodium vivax infection annually, little is known about the epidemiology and impact of the infection in pregnancy. Methodology and principal findings We undertook a health facility-based prospective observational study in pregnant women from Guatemala (GT), Colombia (CO), Brazil...

Incidence of malaria detected through passive case detection (PCD) and through active detection of infection (ADI), overall and by species and country. (PDF)

Further details of the methods used in the histological evaluation of placentas. (PDF)

STROBE checklist. (PDF)

Comparison of baseline characteristics between lost to follow-up women and women with complete follow-up. (PDF)

A vaccine to eliminate malaria would need a multi-stage and multi-species composition to achieve robust protection, but the lack of knowledge about antigen targets and mechanisms of protection precludes the development of fully efficacious malaria vaccines, especially for Plasmodium vivax (Pv). Pregnant women constitute a risk population who would...

P. vivax infection during pregnancy has been associated with poor outcomes such as anemia, low birth weight and congenital malaria, thus representing an important global health problem. However, no vaccine is currently available for its prevention. Vir genes were the first putative virulent factors associated with P. vivax infections, yet very few...

Gating strategy. After exclusion of debris and doublets, lymphocytes were displayed according to CD3 expression and a dump channel containing a viability marker, CD14 and CD19. Live CD3+ T cells were then gated for CD4+ and CD8+ and intracytoplasmic expression of IFN-γ and CD69 was assessed in each of the populations. (JPG)

Baseline characteristics of study population. (DOCX)

Peptide sequences of the long peptides (PvLP). P. vivax long synthetic peptides (PvLP) representing conserved central core (PvLP1) and C-terminal (PvLP2) VIR motifs. Derivatized diethylene glycol (DEG,Merck Chemicals,Nottingham, UK) was inserted in between the different individual segments. (DOCX)

Number of samples for which anti-VIR antibody responses were analyzed by country, timepoint and antigen. (DOCX)

Correlation of anti-VIR responses with other anti-Plasmodium responses. (DOCX)

Effect of time of bleeding on antibody levels. (DOCX)

Characteristics of the one-exon vir genes and proteins selected for cloning and expression, and primer sequences used for gDNA amplification. (DOCX)

Characteristics of the var2csa-like vir genes and proteins selected for cloning and expression, and primer sequences used for gDNA amplification. (DOCX)

STROBE checklist for cohort studies. (DOC)

Human IgG antibodies against GST were detected by Luminex in peripheral plasma at recruitment. Antibody levels are represented as median fluorescence intensity (MFI). Median (white line), and 25th and 75th percentiles (lower and upper hinge respectively) are represented in the box. Outside values are not displayed in the graph. (GIF)

Rationale: Policy recommendations on contact investigation of HIV seropositive tuberculosis patients have changed several times. Current epidemiological evidence informing these recommendations is considered low quality and few large studies investigating the infectiousness of HIV seropositive and seronegative index cases have been performed in su...

Plasmodium vivax is the most widely distributed human parasite and the main cause of human malaria outside the African continent. However, the knowledge about the genetic variability of P. vivax is limited when compared to the information available for P. falciparum. We present the results of a study aimed at characterizing the genetic structure of...

Baseline characteristics of patients analyzed in our study. (TIF)

Molecular markes and PCR conditions used in the present study. (TIF)

Complete results for all P. vivax and P. falciparum MS analyzed loci. (XLSX)

Characteristics of the study sites. (TIF)

Genetic diversity, allelic richness, linkage disequilibrium and genetic distance of Brazilian P. vivax subpopulations. (TIF)

Number of infected pregnant women with available data for each compartment. (TIF)

Abstract Background: Anopheles albimanus is a key malaria vector in the northern neotropics. Current vector control measures in the region are based on mass distributions of long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) and focal indoor residual spraying (IRS) with pyrethroids. Resistance to pyrethroid insecticides can be mediated by increased esterase an...

The Mesoamerican Ministers of Health have set 2020 as the target for malaria elimination to be achieved in the region. Imported malaria cases are a potential threat to countries attempting elimination or working to prevent resurgence. We report the first imported Plasmodium ovale infection with molecular confirmation in Central America, which occur...

Anopheles albimanus is a key malaria vector in the northern neotropics. Current vector control measures in the region are based on mass distributions of long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) and focal indoor residual spraying (IRS) with pyrethroids. Resistance to pyrethroid insecticides can be mediated by increased esterase and/or multi-function o...

This is a report of the first Plasmodium vivax congenital malaria case in Guatemala and the first case in Latin America with genotypical, histological and clinical characterization. The findings show that maternal P. vivax infection still occurs in areas that are in the pathway towards malaria elimination, and can be associated with detrimental hea...