Major parasitic diseases of poverty in mainland China: perspectives for better control.

Jin-Lei Wang,Ting-Ting Li,Xing-Quan Zhu,Wei Cong,Si-Yang Huang

doi:10.1186/s40249-016-0159-0

Abstract

Significant progress has been made in the prevention, control, and elimination of human parasitic diseases in China in the past 60 years. However, parasitic diseases of poverty remain major causes of morbidity and mortality, and inflict enormous economic costs on societies.In this article, we review the prevalence rates, geographical distributions, epidemic characteristics, risk factors, and clinical manifestations of parasitic diseases of poverty listed in the first issue of the journal Infectious Diseases of Poverty on 25 October 2012. We also address the challenges facing control of parasitic diseases of poverty and provide suggestions for better control.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40249-016-0159-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Highlights

Infectious diseases of poverty (IDoPs) are a series of diseases closely related to poverty, which are mainly prevalent in the least developed countries and regions of the world [1,2,3]
Recent epidemiological studies indicate that echinococcosis is widespread in the central and western regions of China including Xinjiang Uygur, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Regions, and Qinghai, Gansu, and Sichuan provinces, and that prevalence rates appear to have gradually risen in recent years
Effective and timely surveillanceresponse systems characterized by reliable information on the prevalence and spatiotemporal distribution of diseases, coupled with rapid-response capability to dispose of emerging threats, provide the final key step to achieving effective prevention, control, and elimination of infectious diseases of poverty (IDoPs) [126,127,128]

Summary

Introduction

Infectious diseases of poverty (IDoPs) are a series of diseases closely related to poverty, which are mainly prevalent in the least developed countries and regions of the world [1,2,3]. The second national survey, conducted in 2004, showed that the overall prevalence of paragonimiasis in China was about 1.7 %, indicating that about 22 million people were infected.

Results

Conclusion