Anthelmintic resistance is a major problem in livestock farming, especially of small ruminants, but our understanding of it has been limited by the difficulty in carrying out functional genetic studies on parasitic nematodes. An important nematode infecting sheep and goats is Haemonchus contortus; in many parts of the world this species is resistant to almost all the currently available drugs, ...

BACKGROUND Treatment of onchocerciasis using mass ivermectin administration has reduced morbidity and transmission throughout Africa and Central/South America. Mass drug administration is likely to exert selection pressure on parasites, and phenotypic and genetic changes in several Onchocerca volvulus populations from Cameroon and Ghana-exposed to more than a decade of regular ivermectin treatm...

UNLABELLED The evolution and persistence of ocular pathology was assessed in a cohort of Onchocerca volvulus infected patients treated annually with ivermectin for 23 years. Patients were resident in rural Central and Kara Region of Togo and ocular examinations included testing of visual acuity, slit lamp examination of the anterior eye segment and the eye fundus by ophthalmoscopy. Before iverm...

Ivermectin was a revolutionary drug in the 1980s, the forerunner of a new group of antiparasitic agents with activity against both parasitic nematodes and arthropods. Initially it was marketed for veterinary use by Merck & Co. Inc.; it was used largely for nematode control in cattle, horses, pigs and dogs and became the standard for control of the ectoparasitic disease, scabies. The injectable ...

OBJECTIVE To compare the therapeutic efficacy and safety of ivermectin and lindane for the treatment of human scabies. DESIGN Randomized, prospective, controlled, double-blind, "double-dummy," and parallel clinical study. SETTING A single department of dermatology at a hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina. PATIENTS Patients were outpatients, hospitalized patients, and those referred to our...

Because ivermectin (22,23-Dihydroavermectin B,) has been proposed as an oral treatment against sea lice infections of farmed salmonids, we investigated the toxicity and pathological effects of various doses of ivermectin administered orally every second day to steelhead trout Oncorhynchus mykiss, coho salmon Oncorhynchus kjsutch, chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha and Atlantic salmon Salmo...

To investigate the role of eosinophil activation and sequestration in the development and severity of adverse reactions after the treatment of Onchocerca volvulus infection, 40 O. volvulus-infected Ghanaians were randomized to receive placebo or standard- or high-dose ivermectin. Subjects were examined for typical physiologic and clinical events before and up to 48 h after treatment. Plasma sam...

The effect of ivermectin or diethylcarbamazine (DEC) on Wuchereria bancrofti molting from the third to the fourth larval stage (L3 to L4) was evaluated in vitro. L3 larvae were harvested from laboratory-reared Aedes togoi 2 wk after feeding upon a microfilaremic human volunteer. The larvae were kept in an artificial medium (Franke's NI medium) with 10% human serum under an atmosphere of 5% CO2 ...

There has long been interest in determining if mass ivermectin administration for onchocerciasis has 'unknowingly' interrupted lymphatic filariasis (LF) transmission where the endemicity of the two diseases' overlaps. We studied 11 communities in central Nigeria entomologically for LF by performing mosquito dissections on Anopheline LF vectors. Six of the communities studied were located within...

Since diethylcarbamazine, the drug recommended for treatment of lymphatic filariasis, seems only partially effective against the adult worm, intense interest persists in identifying a macrofilaricidal drug for this infection. To evaluate directly in vivo the macrofilaricidal activity of repeat high-dose ivermectin, 15 men who had living adult Wuchereria bancrofti detected in the scrotal area by...