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Japan controlled its major parasitic diseases by the 1970s. Based on this experience, the Government of Japan proposed the Global Parasite Control Initiative in 1998 and established three research and training centres around the world. The Asian Centre of International Parasite Control (ACIPAC) is the first such centre, and completed five years of activities focused on school-health-based parasite control in the Greater Mekong Subregion in 2005. The lessons learned and experiences gained by ACIPAC should be applied to all health promotion programmes worldwide. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Current control measures for schistosomiasis have only been partially successful in endemic areas due to socioeconomic constraints. One possibility for controlling the disease is to aim at the miracidial stage of the trematode to avoid infecting intermediate snail hosts by introducing more attractive substances for miracidia in the environment. Here, we introduce an accumulation assay of Schistosoma mansoni miracidia using a square glass tube for analysis of the positive responses of miracidia toward several substances, including snail-conditioned water of Biomphalaria glabrata , Bulinus globosus and insusceptible snails collected in the Nagasaki area in Japan. The substances are not proteins because miracidia accumulated in boiled snail-conditioned water and the secretion or emission level of substances depended on the feeding conditions of Biomphalaria glabrata. The present study also showed that substances emitted from Biomphalaria glabrata with a molecular weight around 10 kDa accumulated Schistosoma mansoni miracidia. Further, we showed that Schistosoma mansoni miracidia did not accumulate in response to mono- or disaccharides tested in the study. [Display omitted] • A simple accumulation assay was established for Schistosoma mansoni miracidia. • Miracidia accumulated in response to snail-conditioned water. • Substances accumulating miracidia are not proteins or volatile. • Substances accumulating miracidia have a molecular weight around 10 kDa. • Miracidia did not accumulate in response to mono- and di-saccharides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on healthcare systems and the general population. However, it remains unclear to what extent these major societal changes have had an impact on the management of hip fractures in older people in Japan. Therefore, we investigated the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the number of patients with hip fractures, their characteristics, and their perioperative management as a retrospective multicentre study., Methods: We included 1894 patients aged ≥ 65 years who underwent surgery for hip fracture at three hospitals between January 2019-December 2021. Patients were classified according to the time of injury; patients treated between January-December 2019, January-December 2020, and January-December 2021 were divided into the pre-COVID-19 group, early COVID-19 group, and late COVID-19 group, respectively. We compared age, sex, body mass index, preadmission residence, surgical procedure, length of hospital stay, waiting time for surgery, in-hospital complications, and in-hospital death., Results: Our findings suggested that the early COVID-19 and late COVID-19 groups showed a 6.8% and 7.5% reduction in the number of HF patients, respectively, compared to the pre-COVID-19 group. Waiting days for surgery, length of hospital stay, and in-hospital mortality or complication rates did not significantly change before and after the pandemic. However, infection was increased in the early COVID-19 group regarding the subgroup of complications., Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic altered the characteristics of hip fractures in older individuals., Competing Interests: Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: The study was approved by the institutional review board, and it conforms to the provisions of the Declaration of Helsinki. Consent for publication: Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2024. The Author(s).)