Ticks capable of carrying the bacterium that causes Lyme disease have been slowly migrating along rivers in the Midwest, a trend that may help predict future areas at risk for the disease, say researchers from the University of Illinois, Urbana. They report their results today at 50th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in Atlanta.

Researchers seeking to make a vaccine against a serious parasitic infection have discovered a dose of fly saliva might be just what the doctor ordered. Leishmaniasis, a disabling and sometimes deadly tropical illness, is caused by a parasite transmitted to people through the bite of a sand fly. In a report released today, scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) describe how a vaccine they developed against a component of sand fly saliva prevents leishmaniasis in mice.

The increase in incidence of tick-borne encephalitis in Sweden reported over the past two decades is directly related to the country's increasingly mild climate over the same period, conclude authors of a study in THE LANCET.

A new test developed with funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has been shown to be highly accurate and sensitive for detecting antibodies to Lyme disease. Produced by Immunetics, Inc. of Cambridge, Massachusetts, the new assay recently won approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use as a diagnostic test for Lyme disease.