166 papers
Infectious diseases represent one of the most dynamic frontiers in global health, covering everything from seasonal flu outbreaks to emerging viral threats that cross borders. This field focuses on how pathogens spread, how our immune systems respond, and the strategies scientists use to stop infections before they become epidemics. Because the science moves fast, waiting for traditional publication often means missing critical insights that could save lives.
At Gist.Science, we process every new preprint in this category directly from medRxiv to ensure you see the latest findings the moment they appear. Our team transforms these raw studies into both accessible plain-language explanations and detailed technical summaries, bridging the gap between complex research and public understanding. Below are the latest papers in infectious diseases, updated daily with fresh insights from the global research community.
The establishment of permanent, locally embedded diagnostic laboratories in Forest Guinea significantly enhanced the detection, surveillance, and response capabilities for viral hemorrhagic fevers, including Ebola, Marburg, and Lassa fever, while providing critical epidemiological insights into previously underreported outbreaks.
Using a controlled human infection model, this study demonstrates that early acute gonorrhea triggers a strong, localized mucosal inflammatory response characterized by elevated cytokines in urine that correlate with pyuria, while systemic immune markers in the blood remain largely unchanged.
In a prospective study conducted in near-elimination settings in Pemba, Tanzania, an AI-assisted microscopy scanner demonstrated the highest diagnostic accuracy among six evaluated single-sample tests for *Schistosoma haematobium*, offering a promising alternative to standard urine filtration microscopy which, while improved by multi-day sampling, remains operationally challenging.
This study presents and evaluates a Bayesian semi-mechanistic model for forecasting COVID-19 hospital admissions in the United States, demonstrating that while incorporating wastewater data yields overall performance similar to models using only clinical data, its impact varies significantly across locations and time periods, highlighting both the potential and challenges of wastewater-based epidemiology in infectious disease forecasting.
This experimental hut trial in Benin demonstrated that the transfluthrin-based spatial emanator Mosquito Shield™ significantly reduces landing, blood-feeding, and survival of pyrethroid-resistant *Anopheles gambiae* s.l. and *Mansonia africana*, supporting its potential as a complementary malaria control tool for WHO prequalification.
This study estimates that seasonal influenza vaccination reduced the risk of fatal influenza by approximately 80% among children aged 6 months to 17 years from the 2016-2017 through 2024-2025 seasons, with high effectiveness observed in both those with and without underlying medical conditions.
In a study of women with tuberculosis in Cape Town, South Africa, researchers found that while the median time to treatment initiation was short for both pregnant and non-pregnant women, pregnant women experienced statistically significant delays and a higher rate of never starting treatment, highlighting a critical need for targeted interventions to ensure timely care for this high-risk group.
This study evaluates the performance of UKHSA's operational multi-target respiratory forecasts for Influenza and COVID-19 hospital admissions in England during the 2024-25 winter, utilizing sub-ensemble simulations, generalized additive models, and Pareto analysis to quantify individual model contributions and reveal trade-offs between optimizing absolute count accuracy and trend direction.
This study developed and validated a novel dynamic scoring system based on time-dependent clinical indicators that effectively stratifies Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome patients into low, intermediate, and high-risk groups for precise severity quantification and early intervention.
A major measles epidemic in Jalisco, Mexico, during January and February 2026 was characterized by vigorous sustained transmission with an effective reproduction number of 3.34, a 6.3-day doubling time, and disproportionately high incidence among infants and young adults.