Dissecting the Immunological Interplay between Poverty Related Diseases and Helminth Infections: An African-European Research Initiative on Co-infections of Poverty Related and Neglected Infectious Diseases.
Worm infections are receiving increase attention due in part to: the wide geographic overlap in occurrence between worms and HIV, TB and malaria; the large proportion of individuals (minimal estimates around 25%) co-infected with worms and HIV/TB/malaria; the potential risk of increasing disease burden; the very limited understanding of the impact of worms infection on HIV-, TB-, and malaria-specific immune responses and on their clinical outcome; the lack of established intervention guidelines for treatment of worm infection. IDEA is a global research program designed to study the immunological interplay between helminth infections and HIV, TB, and Malaria. A number of research institutions from different countries in Europe and Africa are participating in IDEA. The present proposal concerns the Ifakara Health Institute and Swiss Tropical and Public Health Tanzania part of IDEA (IDEA-Tz).
In order to address these complex and challenging scientific issues, IDEA project will focus its efforts on three primary objectives: a) to assess the worm-induced modulation of the functional and molecular profile of HIV-, TB- and Malaria-specific cellular immune responses, b) to assess the impact by worm co-infections on measures of disease activity for HIV, TB and malaria, and c) to identify novel immunological markers of worm-, HIV-, TB- and malaria-specific immune responses associated with better control of pathogen replication and associated disease. To achieve these objectives, IDEA project has developed a global and innovative strategy which includes: the alliance between African and European leading scientists; the multidisciplinary expertise involving immunologists, parasitologists, epidemiologists, and clinicians; cutting edge immunology and the most innovative technologies to profiles immune response; and the access to large cohort studies bringing a number of centres working on worms and HIV, TB, malaria in Africa together.
