July 19, 2012 Belgian scientists of the Institute of Tropical
Medicine (ITM) in Antwerp, Belgium made a breakthrough in
bridging high tech molecular biology research on microbial
pathogens and the needs of the poorest of the poor. After
sequencing the complete genome of Leishmania donovani (a
parasite causing one of the most important tropical diseases
after malaria) in hundreds of clinical isolates, they identified
a series of mutations specific of 'superparasites' and developed
a simple assay that should allow tracking them anywhere. This
EU-funded research was done in collaboration with the Wellcome
Trust Sanger Institute in UK and clinical partners of the
Banaras Hindu University (India) and the BP Koirala Institute of
Health Sciences (Nepal); it is published in the last issue of
the Journal of Infectious Diseases. Leishmania is a unicellular
parasite that is transmitted through the bite of sandflies and
occurs mainly in Latin-America, East-Africa, Asia and countries
around the Mediterranean Sea. The para