Discovery of a novel human picornavirus in a stool sample from a pediatric patient presenting with fever of unknown origin. are genetically diverse and cause common enteric infections in South Asian children.van de Ven E, et al. Saffold virus, a human Theiler's-like cardiovirus, is ubiquitous and causes infection early in life. New algorithms and methods to estimate maximum-likelihood phylogeni...

Melastomataceae and Memecylaceae are pantropically distributed sister groups for which an ndhF gene phylogeny for 91 species in 59 genera is here linked with Eurasian and North American fossils in a molecular clock approach to biogeographical reconstruction. Nine species from the eight next-closest families are used to root phylogenetic trees obtained under maximum likelihood criteria. Melastom...

INTRODUCTION The isolated island nation of Madagascar has substantial prevalence of both smoking and smokeless tobacco use, although not of dual use. Madagascar's tobacco market, much like its historical and cultural underpinnings, appears to have both Asian and African influences. Additionally, it has a unique market structure that plays an important role in influencing patterns of tobacco use...

Melastomataceae and Memecylaceae are pantropically distributed sister groups for which an ndhF gene phylogeny for 91 species in 59 genera is here linked with Eurasian and North American fossils in a molecular clock approach to biogeographical reconstruction. Nine species from the eight next-closest families are used to root phylogenetic trees obtained under maximum likelihood criteria. Melastom...

Bacteriological isolation of Yersinia pestis is the reference test for confirming plague infection, but recovery of the pathogen from human samples is usually very poor. When the etiology of the disease cannot be bacteriologically confirmed, it may be useful to possess alternative tests such as detection of specific circulating antibodies to help guide the diagnosis. In the present study, the i...

Leptospirosis is a bacterial zoonosis of major concern on tropical islands. Human populations on western Indian Ocean islands are strongly affected by the disease although each archipelago shows contrasting epidemiology. For instance, Mayotte, part of the Comoros Archipelago, differs from the other neighbouring islands by a high diversity of Leptospira species infecting humans that includes Lep...

Of the numerous ecosystem services mangroves provide, carbon storage is gaining particular attention for its potential role in climate change mitigation strategies. Madagascar contains 2% of the world’s mangroves, over 20% of which is estimated to have been deforested through charcoal production, timber extraction and agricultural development. This study presents a carbon stock assessment of th...

Madagascar is a geographically isolated country considered a biodiversity hotspot with unique genomics. Both the low-income and the geographical isolation represent risk factors for the development of diabetes. During a humanitarian health campaign conducted in Ambanja, a rural city in the northern part of Madagascar, we identified 42 adult subjects with diabetes and compared their features to ...

BACKGROUND Landscape may affect the distribution of infectious diseases by influencing the population density and dispersal of hosts and vectors. Plague (Yersinia pestis infection) is a highly virulent, re-emerging disease, the ecology of which has been scarcely studied in Africa. Human seroprevalence data for the major plague focus of Madagascar suggest that plague spreads heterogeneously acro...

An identification key of the Phlebotomus in Madagascar is proposed as well as the description of the male and female Phlebotomus (Anaphlebotomus) vaomalalae n. sp. from Mikea Forest in the south-west of Madagascar. The assignation of this new species to the genus Phlebotomus is based on the presence of mesanepisternal setae. Its inclusion in the subgenus Anaphlebotomus is based on the males on ...