Researchers unlock how key drug kills tropical parasites

In a major breakthrough that comes after decades of research and nearly half a billion treatments in humans, scientists have finally unlocked how a key anti-parasitic drug kills the worms brought on by the filarial diseases ...

Study sheds new light on river blindness parasite

The team found that a bacterium inside the worm acts as a 'disguise' for the parasite, resulting in the immune system reacting to it in an ineffective way. The bacteria protect the worm from the body's natural defences, ...

'Magic potion' in fly spit may shoo away blinding eye disease

Researchers are reporting the first identification of a "magic potion" of proteins in the saliva of the black fly that help this blood-sucking pest spread parasites that cause "river blindness," a devastating eye-disease. ...

The fly family genealogy

Certain blackflies can cause river blindness in humans. But which ones? Wageningen University candidate Luis Miguel Hernandez systematized the relationships within the blackfly subgenus Trichodagmia and came up with some ...