Abstract
Co-infection of tuberculosis and parasitic diseases in humans is an important public problem in co-endemic areas in developing countries. However, there is a paucity of studies on co-infection and even fewer reviews. This review examines 44 appropriate papers by PRISMA from 289 papers searched in PubMed via the NCBI Entrez system (no grey literature) up to December 2012 in order to analyze the factors that influence epidemic and host’s immunity of co-infection. The limited evidence in this review indicates that most common parasite species are concurrent with Mycobacterium tuberculosis in multiple organs; socio-demographics such as gender and age, special populations with susceptibility such as renal transplant recipients, patients on maintenance haemodialysis, HIV positive patients and migrants, and living in or coming from co-endemic areas are all likely to have an impact on co-infection. Pulmonary tuberculosis and parasitic diseases were shown to be risk factors for each other. Co-infection may significantly inhibit the host’s immune system, increase antibacterial therapy intolerance and be detrimental to the prognosis of the disease; in addition, infection with parasitic diseases can alter the protective immune response to Bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccination against Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
Highlights
Rationale Both tuberculosis (TB) and parasitic diseases in humans are infectious diseases that exhibit an extensive distribution, causing serious harm to humans
We only found that Enwere et al [35] reviewed the host response of co-infection between TB and malaria and 4 reviews focused on the influence of chronic helminth infections on immunity against TB [44,45,47,48]
This paper reviewed studies globally over the past 70 years on the co-infection of TB and parasitic diseases using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines [52], in order to learn more about which parasites are concurrent with TB, the epidemiological situation regarding co-infection, and the human immune function affected by co-infection
Summary
Rationale Both tuberculosis (TB) and parasitic diseases in humans are infectious diseases that exhibit an extensive distribution, causing serious harm to humans. 436 million people at risk of Schistosomiasis haematobium infection in Sub-Saharan Africa, of which 112 million were infected, with an estimated 393 million people at risk of Schistosomiasis mansoni infection, of which 54 million were infected [4]; an estimated 120 million people in tropical and subtropical areas of the world were infected with lymphatic filariasis in 2009 [5]. These figures suggest that there is an overlap of endemic regions between TB and parasitic disease, which may lead to co-infection of these diseases in the population
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