Discovery of Trichuris landak n. sp. by Endang Purwaningsih

Abstract

Dear Editor, I wish to congratulate Endang Purwaningsih for publishing in Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Biomedicine (APJTB) the important discovery of Trichuris landak n. sp., a new species of whipworm that parasitizes porcupine in Indonesia. The author separated the new species from the other Trichuris spp. by comparing the morphologic features and morphometric measurements of the adult worms. Similar approach was reported by Robles et al. in the discovery of Trichuris navonae n. sp. from forest-dwelling mice in Argentina[1]. Trichuris spp. are relatively host specific in nature; for instance Trichuris trichiura infects human and Trichuris suis infects pigs. However, Ravasi et al. revealed that two distinct Trichuris genotypes were found to infect both humans and non-human primates in South Africa[2]; and Trichuris vulpis, a common canine whipworm was found in a sick Mexican child[3]. Hence, the potential threat of other Trichuris spp., such as Trichuris landak to human population is a health concern especially among rural folks whose environment is surrounded by zoonotic hosts. I agree with Endang in his general comment that molecular analytical tools should be utilized in future studies to improve the speciation of Trichuris spp. This is due to the inherently limited number of unique external morphological features on the adult worms[4]–[6]. Accurate information on the possible zoonotic behaviour of different Trichuris spp. is pertinent for health workers to improve on the existing control measures, since the infection still afflicts ∼600 million people of the world population. Hopefully, more funding will be made available for more molecular phylogenetic studies on Trichuris spp., which will inevitably contribute to our knowledge on the etiology of human trichuriasis.