BACKGROUND Globally about 34 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, and annually 2.5 million new infections and 1.7 million deaths related to AIDS occur. Zambia in particular is experiencing a generalized HIV/AIDS epidemic, with a national HIV prevalence rate of 14.3 percent among adults aged...
Download PDF ↓Plague is a zoonotic disease, endemic throughout the world except Australia and Antarctica. The disease is highly infectious in humans. The causative agent is a gram-negative bacterium, Yersinia pestis (Y. pestis) which, primarily infects a wide range of rodents and is transmitted via flea...
Download PDF ↓Tungiasis, also commonly known as jiggers, is a zoonotic ectoparasitosis caused by the permanent penetration of the epidermis by a gravid female sand flea Tunga penetrans in the skin of a host. The skin disease is known to occur throughout Latin America, the Caribbean and sub Saharan Africa...
Download PDF ↓Background: Schistosomiasis though considered a neglected tropical disease puts 779 million people at risk of being infected while about 200 million people are infected in the world. In Zambia 2 million people are infected putting the prevalence at 16%. The prevalence and factors associated with...
Download PDF ↓African Animal trypanosomosis (AAT) or Nagana and Human African Trypanosomosis (HAT) or Sleeping Sickness are complex chronic, debilitating, emaciating and often fatal diseases of animals and humans, respectively. This cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the prevalence and risk...
Giardia is an intestinal protozoan parasite of mammals including humans. The objectives of the cross sectional study conducted between May 2013 and April 2014 were to estimate the prevalence of Giardia infections in dairy herds on farms in Chilanga and Lusaka districts of Lusaka Province, Zambia,...
Download PDF ↓Background: Traditional host factors and treatment related metabolic changes are implicated in the increase of impaired glucose levels and Type 2 diabetes mellitus in HIV patients. Diabetes mellitus has specific morbidity and mortality consequences. It also contributes to the burden of other...
Download PDF ↓Viruses belonging to Filoviridae family, namely ebolaviruses and marburgviruses, cause filoviral haemorrhagic fever (FHF), resulting in case fatality rates of up to 90 percent depending on the virus species and strain. There has been an increase in the incidence of FHF outbreaks in Africa in the...
Download PDF ↓Toxoplasmosis is a zoonotic parasitic infection caused by Toxoplasma gondii. It is estimated to infect a third of the world’s population although the majority of the infections are largely asymptomatic. In HIV/ AIDS patients toxoplasmosis is capable of causing debilitating disease and is of...
Download PDF ↓Introduction: The Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) results in an improvement in immunologic function. Studies on kinetics of CD4+ cell count response post-HAART indicate that CD4+ cell count increases rapidly during the first 3-6 months, in part due to release of memory T-cells from...