The research group has years of in-depth work experience in both the applied health-care and basic research aspects of tropical medicine. Moreover, this is amply supported by papers published in journals of international impact.
The recent creation of the Murcia Regional Tropical Medicine Unit serves to boost this dual basic/applied facet. The intended goal is to conduct basic research in a clinical context. There are two areas of interest: on the one hand, diseases caused by trypanosomatidae, in which the group has wide-ranging experience; and on the other,the possible role of free-living protozoa in the emergence of infectious diseases
It is therefore important to stress that, according to National Statistics Institute data, in January 2006 the Murcian Autonomous Region had 189,053 immigrants registered on the electoral roll, amounting to 13.8% of the total population. In this same year, Murcia was the region that had the greatest relative growth in Spain, i.e., 2.6% thanks to immigration. Of this total, 103,950 persons (55%) came from Latin America in general, and from Chagas Disease-endemic areas in particular. The Regional Tropical Medicine Unit's main health-care burden currently comprises pregnant patients and adults referred by health care teams belonging to the Murcian Health Service, after dual-technique serological diagnosis (ELISA and IFI) performed at our unit. In just two months -March and April 2007- of a total of 34 sera taken from patients, mostly Bolivian, and sent to our laboratory, 23 (68%) tested positive. At present, work is being done on the study of Chagas Disease pathogenicity markers, in collaboration with the group of Dr. Manuel Carlos López of Granada's López-Neyra Parasitology Institute, as well as on new diagnostic methods applied to newborns of mothers with Chagas Disease