An Indian multicriteria-based risk ranking of foodborne parasites

Abstract

While there are many (potentially) foodborne parasites, these are often neglected infections, with relatively little attention devoted to their surveillance, prevention, and/or treatment, and policy makers are unclear as to where interventions should be targeted. Different parasite–food matrix combinations have different implications for public health in different global regions.We conducted a risk ranking of foodborne parasites in India as part of a One Health workshop held in Chandigarh, India for postgraduate medical and biomedical students. This exercise followed a similar procedure to an analogous exercise conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO) in 2012 when foodborne parasites were ranked from a global perspective according to various criteria with different weightings.Although both the Indian and global ranking exercises placed Taenia solium as the most important foodborne parasite, probably due to the severe disease associated with cysticercosis, other parasites were ranked differently in the two ranking exercises. In particular Cryptosporidium and Ascaris were ranked more highly in the Indian risk ranking. These differences probably reflect parasite occurrence in India, eating habits (lack of consumption of raw meat and fish), and potential severity of infection.Risk ranking also assists in highlighting data gaps; in this exercise some data gaps, particularly on the prevalence of different foodborne parasites in India, were found to be very large and should be filled in order to provide a more solid basis for such an exercise that will enable understanding of where control should be targeted.