A new drug that stops the malaria parasite in its tracks, and could be delivered in a single dose, has researchers excited about treatment prospects for the disease.
This parasitic infection is endemic in Central and South America, and can lead to serious health complications. Though rare in the US, incidence is starting to increase.
Intestinal worms (or helminths) are multicellular parasites that live inside the gut. When mature, they can generally be seen with the naked eye. In developing countries with poor sanitation, the most…
Giant pandas aren’t dying like they used to. In the early 1980s, starvation accounted for more than nine out of ten deaths. However, over the past three decades a parasitic gut worm has replaced that as…
Cuckoos are notorious cheats. Instead of building a nest, incubating their eggs and raising their chicks, they lay their eggs in the nests of other birds and leave the task of raising their offspring to…
Reproduction for a female fig wasp can be a nightmarish process. When she is ready to lay her eggs, she leaves the fig in which she was born and became pregnant and searches for another. After she finds…
When you’re sick, you want the most effective treatment to help get you back on your feet. But what if that involved bugs? Maggots and leeches have been used for decades and are still supplied to hospitals…
Onchocerciasis, or river blindness as it’s more commonly known, is a major public health problem in the wet tropics, and especially in tropical Africa. This eye and skin disease is caused by a filaria…
In sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Latin America, there is a parasitic worm that infects about 25m people, causing serious skin diseases, epilepsy and blindness. Known as Onchocerca volvulus, it can live…
Helena Helmby, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Most people are fascinated, and probably equally repulsed, by parasites. And it may be something you think you only need to worry about if you go on holiday somewhere exotic. However, increasing globalisation…
For decades, scientists have tried to understand the complex and gruesome relationship between the parasitic emerald wasp Ampulex compressa and its much larger victim, the common household cockroach Periplaneta…
Meet Sacculina carcini – a barnacle that makes a living as a real-life body-snatcher of crabs. Unlike most barnacles that are happy to simply stick themselves to a rock and filter food from the water…
In 1986 Guinea-worm disease infected 3.5m people. Simple interventions have since ensured that in 2013 only 148 cases were recorded. With a final push, this could be the third disease to be eradicated…
When a bird species is threatened by nest parasites, you might think the logical next step is to fumigate – unsurprisingly, though, physically spraying nests (as you might spray an infested house) is disruptive…
The term “vector-borne” refers to the way diseases are passed on from one person to another. Instead of through the air or directly by human contact, these pathogens need to hitch a ride for transmission…