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.
This study reports the development and validation of a rapid, automated, battery-operated PCR assay on the DASH(R) system that detects *Mycobacterium tuberculosis* from both sputum and tongue swabs with high sensitivity and specificity, making it suitable for point-of-care diagnosis in resource-limited settings.
Prior inactivated Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) vaccination imprints a fusion loop-biased, low-potency antibody response with enhanced antibody-dependent enhancement risk, which can be mitigated by a complete series of live-attenuated dengue vaccination that redirects immunity toward non-fusion-loop epitopes.
A retrospective analysis of digital health app data reveals that menstruation significantly increases the frequency of symptom crashes and severity in Long COVID and ME/CFS, while combined hormonal contraception is associated with reduced symptom burden, suggesting a modulatory role of ovarian hormones in these conditions.
This longitudinal study in Eastern Uganda utilized quantitative PCR parasite density distributions to estimate the malaria attributable fraction (MAF), revealing that common parasite density thresholds significantly underestimate the true incidence of clinical malaria across all age groups, particularly in adults, and suggesting that future intervention studies should incorporate MAF corrections for more accurate outcome assessment.
This prospective diagnostic accuracy study validates a novel nanopore metagenomic sequencing workflow for detecting viral respiratory pathogens in nasopharyngeal swabs, demonstrating high specificity (99.8%) but limited sensitivity (51%) against routine PCR due to high host biomass, thereby highlighting the need for optimized use cases and rigorous bioinformatic thresholds to maximize clinical utility.
The LP.8.1 variant-containing mRNA vaccines (mRNA-1273.251 and mRNA-1283.251) were well tolerated and elicited robust neutralizing antibody responses against the matched LP.8.1 variant and circulating SARS-CoV-2 subvariants in individuals aged 12 and older.
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.