Emerging infectious diseases
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Emerging Infect. Dis. · Feb 2007
Historical ArticleYersinia pestis Orientalis in remains of ancient plague patients.
Yersinia pestis DNA was recently detected in human remains from 2 ancient plague pandemics in France and Germany. We have now sequenced Y pestis glpD gene in such remains, showing a 93-bp deletion specific for biotype Orientalis. These data show that only Orientalis type caused the 3 plague pandemics.
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Emerging Infect. Dis. · Feb 2007
Human African trypanosomiasis in a rural community, Democratic Republic of Congo.
According to the World Health Organization, human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) (sleeping sickness) caused the loss of approximately 1.5 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) in 2002. We describe the effect of HAT during 2000-2002 in Buma, a rural community near Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We used retrospective questionnaire surveys to estimate HAT-related household costs and DALYs. ⋯ The total number of HAT-related DALYs was 2,145, and interventions to control HAT averted 1,408 DALYs. The cost per DALY averted was US $17. Because HAT has a serious economic effect on households and control interventions are cost-effective, considering only global burden of disease rankings for resource allocation could lead to misguided priority setting if applied without caution in HAT-affected countries.