Malaria is an ancient disease in India. Known as the ‘king of diseases’, malaria was estimated to cause 75 million cases and 0.8 million deaths annually. In epidemic years, morbidity and mortality used to increase 2–3 times. Ravages of malaria were so rampant and devastating, that the economic growth of the country remained paralysed.

Dengue is one of the most important mosquito-borne viral diseases in the world, and is endemic in approximately 120 countries. It has been estimated that there are 50–100 million cases of dengue fever and 3.6 billion people are at risk of infection. It is emerging and re-emerging in the tropics and currently poses the most significant arboviral threat to humans.

During the past decade, renewed global and national efforts to combat malaria have led to ambitious goals. The authors aimed to provide an accurate assessment of the levels and time trends in malaria mortality to aid assessment of progress towards these goals and the focusing of future efforts.

Typhoid fever, caused by Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (S. Typhi), is a major health problem especially in developing countries. Vaccines against typhoid are commonly used by travelers but less so by residents of endemic areas. The researchers used single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) typing to investigate the population structure of 372 S. Typhi isolated during a typhoid disease burden study and Vi vaccine trial in Kolkata, India.

A multinational, prospective clinical study was carried out in South-East Asia (SEA) and Latin America (LA), to ascertain the proportion of inapparent dengue infections in households of febrile dengue cases, and to compare clinical data and biological markers from subjects with various dengue disease patterns. Dengue infection was laboratory-confirmed during the acute phase, by virus isolation and detection of the genome. The four participating reference laboratories used standardized methods.