[The Emerging Voices for Global Health Initiative: an intensive capacity-building effort for young researchers from the South]. / L'expérience « Talents émergents en santé mondiale ¼ : une forme de renforcement intensif des capacités des jeunes chercheurs du Sud.

Researchers from developing countries, French-speaking nations in particular, are underrepresented in the international biomedical and health literature. Various initiatives seek to address this problem. This article presents the experience of the Emerging Voices for Global Health (EV4GH) program. This initiative provided 52 young researchers from developing countries with intensive skills and content training, with an assortment of complementary components: training in scientific writing and presenting skills, immersion in global health and health systems research, an innovative presentation of their work at the 52nd colloquium of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, and an active role in the first Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, supervised by a team of experienced researchers/coaches who supported them in the publication of a scientific essay. This approach targeting researchers in developing countries and combining the development of skills and knowledge through the publication process, merits reproduction and encouragement. Young researchers from developing countries should not miss out on the second version of this program in October 2012 in Beijing, China.

Transmissibility of Trypanosoma brucei during its development in cattle.

Recent outbreaks of Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense sleeping sickness in Soroti District of eastern Uganda have demonstrated the important role cattle can play as reservoirs of this parasite. To clarify the epidemiological importance of the cattle reservoir, experiments were conducted to determine the ease with which T. brucei is transmitted during the course of its development in Friesian cattle. The development of T. brucei in cattle is characterized by an acute phase with high levels of parasitaemia and a decline in PCV. The acute phase is followed by a chronic phase during which the PCV remains low but stable and the parasitaemia is low. Parasites are often difficult to detect using parasitological diagnostic tools during this chronic phase. Challenge of chronically infected cattle with T. congolense results in a sudden increase in the T. brucei parasitaemia. Despite significant differences in parasitaemia, the proportion of tsetse flies that developed metacyclic infections after a first bloodmeal on the infected cattle did not differ significantly between the acute and chronic phases or the phase of mixed T. b. brucei/T. congolense infection. This suggests that, throughout the observation period, the parasitaemia was above the threshold above which infection rates of tsetse are independent of the parasitaemia. The repercussions of the research findings for the understanding of the epidemiology, spread and the control of T. b. rhodesiense sleeping sickness are discussed.

Protein requirements in larvae and adults of Scaptotrigona postica (Hymenoptera: Apidae [correction of Apidia], Meliponinae): midgut proteolytic activity and pollen digestion.

The number and degree of digestion of pollen grains in the midgut and rectum, the midgut proteolytic activity and the time of pollen grain passage through the digestive tract in the stingless bee Scaptotrigona postica (Latreille) have been analyzed. The results show similar protein requirements among larvae, nurse bees and queens, as well as between forager bees and old males, but these requirements are higher in individuals from the former groups than in those from the latter. Although protein requirements have been demonstrated to vary according to a bee's activity in the colony, they are similar among bees from different castes or sexes. These changes in feeding behavior are related to the bee's function and to less competition for nourishment among individuals of the colony. It is also noted that pollen grains took between 6 and 28 h to pass through the digestive tract. Pollen grains are irregularly accumulated in the various regions of the midgut, which may reflect functional differentiation throughout the midgut.