242 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 Cultryx machine learning model, trained on electronic medical record data, significantly outperforms standard clinical heuristics and AI tools in predicting bacteremia, enabling a 26.2% reduction in unnecessary blood culture orders while maintaining high sensitivity to conserve resources and improve patient safety.
A prospective multicenter study in Japan demonstrated that the QuickNavi-Campylobacter rapid antigen test shows high concordance with the FilmArray Gastrointestinal Panel for early diagnosis of Campylobacter infections, though its sensitivity declines in specimens collected six or more days after symptom onset.
Genotyping of *Plasmodium vivax* isolates in eastern Cambodia from 2014 to 2023 reveals a significant decline in parasite diversity and an increase in inbreeding, providing genetic evidence that widespread radical cure interventions have successfully reduced malaria transmission.
A 2023 cross-sectional survey in Cambodia reveals that while *Plasmodium falciparum* is nearly eliminated, current diagnostic practices relying on rapid tests fail to detect the majority of *Plasmodium* infections (predominantly *P. vivax*), particularly in low-transmission settings where false-negative rates are highest.
This mixed-methods study at four Ugandan AMR surveillance sites reveals that blood culture utilization for suspected sepsis in hospitalized children under five remains low (28.1%) despite high clinician awareness, driven primarily by systemic barriers, inefficient workflows, and emotional fatigue rather than knowledge gaps, with higher usage linked to clinical severity and senior clinician involvement.
This study identifies a novel transposon, Tn8026, carried on a linear plasmid as the global driver of transmissible linezolid resistance in *Enterococcus*, revealing its long-standing undetected circulation across species and continents through long-read genomic surveillance.
In a retrospective cohort study of 482 hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Brazil during the pre-vaccination era, five admission variables—age, arterial pH, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, comorbidity burden, and serum creatinine—were identified as independent predictors of in-hospital mortality, supporting the use of routinely available clinical data for early risk stratification.
This study characterizes *Plasmodium falciparum* carriage dynamics in central and northern Mali, revealing that while Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention reduces infection in young children, asymptomatic carriers aged 10–24 in central Mali and a generalized high-burden reservoir in northern Mali sustain transmission, suggesting a need for targeted interventions beyond current SMC coverage.
This single-centre retrospective study of nearly 190,000 urine cultures reveals that urine sample type and polymicrobial co-isolation significantly influence antimicrobial resistance patterns in urinary tract infections, suggesting that incorporating these contextual factors alongside pathogen identity could improve clinical reporting and empiric prescribing.
This study demonstrates that an optimized ELISA utilizing a polymeric peptide (S559) with avidity-enhanced epitope presentation achieves high diagnostic accuracy (up to 95.01% sensitivity and 100% specificity) for SARS-CoV-2 antibody detection, offering a promising low-cost alternative to whole-antigen assays for resource-limited settings.