While gene flow between distantly related populations is increasingly recognized as a potentially important source of adaptive genetic variation for humans, fully characterized examples are rare. In addition, the role that natural selection for resistance to vivax malaria may have played in the extreme distribution of the protective Duffy-null allele, which is nearly completely fixed in mainland sub-Saharan Africa and absent elsewhere, is controversial. We address both these issues by investigating the evolution of the...

Objectives: To investigate prevalence of cervical human papillomavirus (HPV) genotypes to inform HPV vaccination strategy in South Africa and to study factors associated with HPV prevalence. Methods: Sexually active, HIV-negative women, aged 16-22 years recruited from Soweto (n=143) and Cape Town (n=148) were tested for cervical HPV and other genital infections. Results: Overall HPV prevalence was 66.7% (194/291) in young women. Cape Town women were more likely to have multiple HPV infections than the Soweto...

Additional file 1: Figure S1. A bar plot of the taxa and their relative abundance of the extraction and sequencing mock controls compared to manufacturer profiles. Figure S2. A scatterplot showing the correlation between samples repeated within a run (WR, n = 74) and between runs (BR, n=28). Figure S3. A scatterplot showing the spread of biological samples (n=960) and the negative controls (primestore, n=43) 16S copies vs final number of reads (A1 and A2),...

Background: South Africa has the highest tuberculosis incidence globally (781/100,000), with an estimated 4.3% of cases being rifampicin resistant (RR). Control and elimination strategies will require detailed spatial information to understand where drug-resistant tuberculosis exists and why it persists in those communities. We demonstrate a method to enable drug-resistant tuberculosis monitoring by identifying high-burden communities in the Western Cape Province using routinely collected laboratory data. Methods and findings: We retrospectively identified cases of microbiologically confirmed...

Additional file 1: Figure S1. A bar plot of the taxa and their relative abundance of the extraction and sequencing mock controls compared to manufacturer profiles. Figure S2. A scatterplot showing the correlation between samples repeated within a run (WR, n = 74) and between runs (BR, n=28). Figure S3. A scatterplot showing the spread of biological samples (n=960) and the negative controls (primestore, n=43) 16S copies vs final number of reads (A1 and A2),...

Background: South Africa has a large burden of rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis (RR-TB), with 18,734 patients diagnosed in 2014. The number of diagnosed patients has increased substantially with the introduction of the Xpert MTB/RIF test, used for TB diagnosis for all patients with presumptive TB. Routine aggregate data suggest a large treatment gap (pre-treatment loss to follow up) between the numbers of laboratory confirmed RR-TB patients and those reported to have started second-line treatment. We aimed to...

The final results from this multi-dose, 90-day inhalation toxicology study in the rat with life-time post-exposure observation have shown a significant fundamental difference in pathological response and tumorgenicity between brake dust generated from brake pads manufactured with chrysotile or from chrysotile alone in comparison to the amphiboles, crocidolite and amosite asbestos. The groups exposed to brake dust showed no significant pathological or tumorigenic response in the respiratory track compared to the air control group at...