Integrate Control of Syndemic Diseases: Malaria, East Coast Fever, and Worms

Thumbi Mwangi of Washington State University in the U.S. will work at the Kenya Medical Research Institute in Kenya to test whether treatment of parasitic helminth infections reduces the severity of the co-occurring parasitic diseases malaria and East Coast Fever (ECF) in humans and cattle respectively, which are more difficult to treat. In many developing countries, humans carry more than one parasitic disease, but if and how they interact to affect disease impact, for example by modifying the immune response, is not well understood. Mwangi will perform a controlled field trial in Western Kenya to test the effect of anthelmintic drugs on the incidence and severity of malaria and ECF, and will also analyze the presence of specific cytokines, which are immune signalling molecules, to help understand how pathogen interactions occur.