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Echinococcus multilocularis in North America: the great unknown

Over the last decade, studies have begun to shed light on the distribution and genetic characterization of Echinococcus multilocularis, the causative agent of alveolar echinococcosis (AE), in North America. Recent findings indicate that the parasite is likely expanding its range in the central regio...

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Autores principales: Massolo, Alessandro, Liccioli, Stefano, Budke, Christine, Klein, Claudia
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: EDP Sciences 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4273702/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25531581
http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/parasite/2014069
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author Massolo, Alessandro
Liccioli, Stefano
Budke, Christine
Klein, Claudia
author_facet Massolo, Alessandro
Liccioli, Stefano
Budke, Christine
Klein, Claudia
author_sort Massolo, Alessandro
collection PubMed
description Over the last decade, studies have begun to shed light on the distribution and genetic characterization of Echinococcus multilocularis, the causative agent of alveolar echinococcosis (AE), in North America. Recent findings indicate that the parasite is likely expanding its range in the central region of the United States and Canada and that invasions of European strains might have occurred. In our review, we present the available data on E. multilocularis infections in wild and domestic animals and humans in North America and emphasize the lack of knowledge on the distribution of the parasite in wild and domestic hosts. Furthermore, we stress the need to better understand the complexity of host communities and their roles in shaping the transmission and distribution of the parasite. We hypothesize that a lack of knowledge about AE by North American physicians might result in the misdiagnosis of cases and an underestimation of disease incidence. The endemic presence of the parasite in urban areas and a recent human case in Alberta, Canada, suggest that the scientific community may need to reconsider the local public health risks, re-assess past cases that might have been overlooked and increase surveillance efforts to identify new cases of human AE.
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spelling pubmed-42737022014-12-29 Echinococcus multilocularis in North America: the great unknown Massolo, Alessandro Liccioli, Stefano Budke, Christine Klein, Claudia Parasite Review Article Over the last decade, studies have begun to shed light on the distribution and genetic characterization of Echinococcus multilocularis, the causative agent of alveolar echinococcosis (AE), in North America. Recent findings indicate that the parasite is likely expanding its range in the central region of the United States and Canada and that invasions of European strains might have occurred. In our review, we present the available data on E. multilocularis infections in wild and domestic animals and humans in North America and emphasize the lack of knowledge on the distribution of the parasite in wild and domestic hosts. Furthermore, we stress the need to better understand the complexity of host communities and their roles in shaping the transmission and distribution of the parasite. We hypothesize that a lack of knowledge about AE by North American physicians might result in the misdiagnosis of cases and an underestimation of disease incidence. The endemic presence of the parasite in urban areas and a recent human case in Alberta, Canada, suggest that the scientific community may need to reconsider the local public health risks, re-assess past cases that might have been overlooked and increase surveillance efforts to identify new cases of human AE. EDP Sciences 2014 2014-12-23 /pmc/articles/PMC4273702/ /pubmed/25531581 http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/parasite/2014069 Text en © A. Massolo et al., published by EDP Sciences, 2014 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Review Article
Massolo, Alessandro
Liccioli, Stefano
Budke, Christine
Klein, Claudia
Echinococcus multilocularis in North America: the great unknown
title Echinococcus multilocularis in North America: the great unknown
title_full Echinococcus multilocularis in North America: the great unknown
title_fullStr Echinococcus multilocularis in North America: the great unknown
title_full_unstemmed Echinococcus multilocularis in North America: the great unknown
title_short Echinococcus multilocularis in North America: the great unknown
title_sort echinococcus multilocularis in north america: the great unknown
topic Review Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4273702/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25531581
http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/parasite/2014069
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