Blogs

‘What’s in a name?’ In the case of Professor Tu Youyou, her name turned out to be an insight into a future discovery that led to her being awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize for Medicine.

Leptospirosis is one of the most widespread and pervasive zoonotic bacterial diseases worldwide, but unfortunately current research into leptospirosis in Africa is fragmented with little to no recent data available on human disease in many countries.

Zika virus is an arbovirus native to Africa,  transmitted via Aedes mosquitoes. The infection causes symptoms including mild fever, conjunctivitis and headache. In May 2015, locally acquired cases of Zika virus were confirmed in Brazil. Since then, it has spread to 21 countries in the Caribbean, North and South America and WHO has warned that the virus is likely to spread across nearly all of the Americas.