Epidemiological review of human and animal fascioliasis in Egypt

Maha F M Soliman

doi:10.3855/jidc.260

Abstract

One of the neglected food-borne-diseases in the international public health arena is fascioliasis. It is a serious infectious parasitic disease infecting humans and animals worldwide and tops all the zoonotic helminthes. Human cases are being increasingly reported from Europe, the Americas, Oceania, Africa and Asia. Hence, human fascioliasis is considered now as a zoonosis of major global and regional importance. In Egypt, animal and human fascioliasis is an endemic clinical and epidemiological health problem. Doubtless, understanding the epidemiology of the parasitic diseases and factors affecting their incidence provides the foundation upon which effective prevention and control programs should be established. This article reviews the history, life cycles, transmission, incidence, geographical distribution, and environmental and human determinants that contribute to the epidemiological picture of fascioliasis with special reference to Egypt.

Highlights

Food-borne trematodiases, including fascioliasis, are neglected in the international public health arena in comparison with other helminthic diseases [1]
This review presents an epidemiological picture of fascioliasis with a special reference to Egypt
[15,17,18,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31], but the only complete available data about incidence of the disease was that done in 1988 by the general organization of veterinary services, Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) [32] (Table 1) where the low and high incidences of bovine fascioliasis recorded at that time were 3% and 59.5% in North Sinai and Dakahlia governorate, respectively

Summary

Introduction

Food-borne trematodiases, including fascioliasis, are neglected in the international public health arena in comparison with other helminthic diseases [1]. The prevalence of AF in Egypt has been estimated in sporadic studies [15,17,18,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31], but the only complete available data about incidence of the disease was that done in 1988 by the general organization of veterinary services, Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) [32] (Table 1) where the low and high incidences of bovine fascioliasis recorded at that time were 3% and 59.5% in North Sinai and Dakahlia governorate, respectively. Despite the prevalence of fascioliasis in many regions, physicians and health workers often do not consider the possibility of Fasciola hepatica infection when treating patients and would benefit from awareness training This would increase timely identification and treatment, decreasing both the individual disease burden and transmission by way of the human reservoir [40]

20. Website 1: Fasciola hepatica

Findings

40. Web site 2