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.
This study utilizes spatial proteomics to reveal that, regardless of whether the mycetoma pathogen is bacterial or fungal, the tissue microenvironment immediately surrounding the pathogen grains forms a conserved immunosuppressive niche characterized by the accumulation of CD66b+ARG1+VISTA+ cells, thereby facilitating pathogen persistence.
Using the OpenSAFELY platform, researchers developed and validated specific and sensitive computable phenotypes to accurately classify respiratory syncytial virus, influenza, and COVID-19 cases in English electronic health records, demonstrating their alignment with surveillance data while highlighting varying misclassification risks based on phenotype specificity and patient age.
This single-facility observational study in a Japanese long-term care facility demonstrates that self-reported and monitoring-based contact records exhibit distinct discrepancy patterns compared to ultra-wideband sensor data, suggesting that contact identification strategies should be tailored to specific facility workflows rather than relying on a single universal proximity threshold.
This retrospective cohort study of over 65,000 U.S. adults using All of Us data found that long COVID risk is significantly associated with demographic factors and pre-infection health status but is not driven by the mere presence of pre-existing symptoms or functional impairments, suggesting that long COVID represents a distinct change from an individual's baseline health.
This study demonstrates that an interpretable Random Forest machine learning model, trained on k-mer features derived from whole-genome sequencing data of 1,424 Shigella isolates, can accurately and transparently predict ciprofloxacin resistance by integrating both chromosomal mutations and plasmid-mediated determinants.
This paper introduces the Multi-Clique network model to demonstrate that explicitly representing saturated within-group interactions and constrained between-group contacts reveals epidemic dynamics—such as slower growth and lower peaks—that are systematically underestimated by classical degree-matched random graph models.
This study presents a spatial metapopulation SEIR model that integrates recurrent mobility, household clustering, and age-stratified interactions to demonstrate how location connectivity and pathogen characteristics shape epidemic dynamics, thereby informing the timing and targeting of non-pharmaceutical interventions for diseases like COVID-19 and Ebola.
Post-hoc analyses of the AReSVi-006 trial demonstrate that a single dose of the adjuvanted RSVPreF3 vaccine provides sustained protection against RSV-related lower respiratory tract disease, acute respiratory illness, and complications over three consecutive seasons in medically stable adults aged 60 and older with underlying conditions such as COPD, asthma, diabetes, and obesity.
This study utilized whole-genome sequencing of 322 isolates from three Tunisian hospitals to reveal a diverse population of third-generation cephalosporin-resistant *Klebsiella pneumoniae* dominated by ESBLs and specific carbapenemases, characterized by sustained ward-level transmission and the emerging convergence of hypervirulence markers, thereby highlighting the critical need for targeted infection control and routine genomic integration in national surveillance.
This qualitative study across ten hospitals in Singapore, Nepal, and Thailand identifies structural deficiencies such as limited laboratory capabilities and weak guidelines, alongside clinician prioritization of short-term patient safety, as key drivers of broad-spectrum antibiotic overuse, highlighting the need for systemic improvements to support effective antimicrobial stewardship.