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'Ailments of poverty' persist in the United States

Infection Control Monitor, June 27, 2008

Hundred of thousands of poor Americans harbor chronic infections caused by debilitating parasitic, bacterial, and congenital infections, according to a new analysis.

Known as the neglected infections of poverty, they include tropical diseases much more common in poor countries, says the report “Neglected Infections of Poverty in the United State of America,” which appears in the June 25 issue of Neglected Tropical Diseases, a journal of the Public Library of Science

While not well known to the U.S. public health community, the diseases affect thousands of the poor concentrated in the Mississippi Delta and elsewhere in the American South, Appalachia, the borderlands with Mexico, disadvantaged urban neighborhoods, tribal reservations, as well as certain immigrant populations. The major neglected infections include helminth infections, toxocariasis, strongyloidiasis, ascariasis, and cysticercosis; the intestinal protozoan infection trichomoniasis; some zoonotic bacterial infections, including leptospirosis; the vector-borne infections Chagas disease, leishmaniasis, trench fever, and dengue fever; and the congenital infections cytomegalovirus (CMV), toxoplasmosis, and syphilis, the study reports.

The study’s recommendations include more surveillance of these illnesses, including newborn screening. For a copy of the study, click here.

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