Human and animal serological surveys suggest that West Nile virus (WNV) circulation is widely distributed in Madagascar. However, there are no reported West Nile fever outbreaks or epizootics in the country and only one fatal human case has been reported to date. Currently there is very limited information on the maintenance and the transmission of WNV in Madagascar and particularly on the mosq...

Background. The genus Pachypodium contains 21 species of succulent, generally spinescent shrubs and trees found in southern Africa and Madagascar. Pachypodium has diversified mostly into arid and semi-arid habitats of Madagascar, and has been cited as an example of a plant group that links the highly diverse arid-adapted floras of Africa and Madagascar. However, a lack of knowledge about phylog...

Four poliomyelitis outbreaks caused by vaccine-derived polioviruses have been reported recently, including one in Madagascar in 2002. In all cases, the viral strains involved were recombinant between poliovirus vaccine strains and nonpoliovirus strains, probably enterovirus species C. Nevertheless, little is known about the circulation and epidemiology of enteroviruses in the regions where thes...

Syzygium aromaticum essential oil is widely used in dental care, as an antiseptic and analgesic and is effective against a large number of bacteria. The major component of clove essential oils is usually considered to be eugenol, with βcaryophyllene and eugenyl acetate, being present although in lower concentrations. A review of published results reveals a great variability in the chemical comp...

Few countries in Africa currently include rubella-containing vaccination (RCV) in their immunization schedule. The Global Alliance for Vaccines Initiative (GAVI) recently opened a funding window that has motivated more widespread roll-out of RCV. As countries plan RCV introductions, an understanding of the existing burden, spatial patterns of vaccine coverage, and the impact of patterns of loca...

Madoxychara unicornis gen. et sp. nov. (Hemiptera: Fulgoromorpha: Flatidae) is described and illustrated from Madagascar.

The combination of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine is recommended for use as intermittent preventive treatment of malaria during pregnancy and is deployed in Africa. The emergence and the spread of resistant parasites are major threats to such an intervention. We have characterized the Plasmodium falciparum dhfr (pfdhfr) haplotypes and flanking microsatellites in 322 P. falciparum isolates collected ...

Although situated ∼400 km from the east coast of Africa, Madagascar exhibits cultural, linguistic, and genetic traits from both Southeast Asia and Eastern Africa. The settlement history remains contentious; we therefore used a grid-based approach to sample at high resolution the genomic diversity (including maternal lineages, paternal lineages, and genome-wide data) across 257 villages and 2,70...

The parthenogenetic marbled crayfish, Marmorkrebs, has high potential to become an invasive species because single individuals can establish a population. Marmorkrebs have already been introduced in several countries, have successfully established populations in at least two of them, and are rapidly expanding in one case (Madagascar). To assess the potential ecological threat arising from furth...