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Uncovering the Pathogenic Landscape of Helminth (Opisthorchis viverrini) Infections: A Cross-Sectional Study on Contributions of Physical and Social Environment and Healthcare Interventions
BACKGROUND: Helminth infections have proven recalcitrant to control by chemotherapy in many parts of Southeast Asia and indeed farther afield. This study isolates and examines the influence of different aspects of the physical and social environment, and uneven intervention effort contributing to th...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5142777/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27926938 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0005175 |
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author | Ong, Xueyuan Wang, Yi-Chen Sithithaworn, Paiboon Namsanor, Jutamas Taylor, David Laithavewat, Luxana |
author_facet | Ong, Xueyuan Wang, Yi-Chen Sithithaworn, Paiboon Namsanor, Jutamas Taylor, David Laithavewat, Luxana |
author_sort | Ong, Xueyuan |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Helminth infections have proven recalcitrant to control by chemotherapy in many parts of Southeast Asia and indeed farther afield. This study isolates and examines the influence of different aspects of the physical and social environment, and uneven intervention effort contributing to the pathogenic landscape of human Opisthorchis viverrini infections. METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional survey, involving 632 participants, was conducted in four villages in northeast Thailand to examine the impact on prevalence and parasite burden of the reservoir dam environment, socio-economic, demographic, and behavioral factors, and health center intervention efforts. Formalin-ether concentration technique was used for diagnoses, and multivariate models were used for analyses. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The importance attributed to O. viverrini infections varied among health centers in the four study villages. Villages where O. viverrini infections were not prioritized by the health centers as the healthcare focus were at a higher risk of infection (prevalence) with odds ratio (risk factor) of 5.73 (3.32–10.27) and p-value < 0.01. Priority of healthcare focus, however, did not appear to influence behavior, as the consumption of raw fish, the main source of O. viverrini infections in the study area, was 11.4% higher in villages that prioritized O. viverrini infections than those that did not (p-value = 0.01). Landscape variation, notably proximity to reservoir, affects vulnerability of local population to infection. Infection intensity was higher in population located closer to the reservoir with risk ratio of 2.09 (1.12–4.02) and p-value < 0.01. Patterns of infection intensities among humans were found to match fish infection intensity, where higher infection intensities were associated with fish obtained from the reservoir waterbody type (p-value = 0.023). CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: This study demonstrated the importance of environmental influence and healthcare focus as risk factors of infections in addition to the socio-economic, demographic, and behavioral factors commonly explored in existing studies. The reservoir was identified as a crucial source to target for opisthorchiasis intervention efforts and the need to consider infection intensity in disease control efforts was highlighted. The holistic approach in this study, which underscores the close relationship between the environment, animals, and humans in development of human infections or diseases, is an important contribution to the framework of One Health approach, where consideration of helminth diseases has largely been overlooked. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5142777 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-51427772016-12-22 Uncovering the Pathogenic Landscape of Helminth (Opisthorchis viverrini) Infections: A Cross-Sectional Study on Contributions of Physical and Social Environment and Healthcare Interventions Ong, Xueyuan Wang, Yi-Chen Sithithaworn, Paiboon Namsanor, Jutamas Taylor, David Laithavewat, Luxana PLoS Negl Trop Dis Research Article BACKGROUND: Helminth infections have proven recalcitrant to control by chemotherapy in many parts of Southeast Asia and indeed farther afield. This study isolates and examines the influence of different aspects of the physical and social environment, and uneven intervention effort contributing to the pathogenic landscape of human Opisthorchis viverrini infections. METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional survey, involving 632 participants, was conducted in four villages in northeast Thailand to examine the impact on prevalence and parasite burden of the reservoir dam environment, socio-economic, demographic, and behavioral factors, and health center intervention efforts. Formalin-ether concentration technique was used for diagnoses, and multivariate models were used for analyses. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The importance attributed to O. viverrini infections varied among health centers in the four study villages. Villages where O. viverrini infections were not prioritized by the health centers as the healthcare focus were at a higher risk of infection (prevalence) with odds ratio (risk factor) of 5.73 (3.32–10.27) and p-value < 0.01. Priority of healthcare focus, however, did not appear to influence behavior, as the consumption of raw fish, the main source of O. viverrini infections in the study area, was 11.4% higher in villages that prioritized O. viverrini infections than those that did not (p-value = 0.01). Landscape variation, notably proximity to reservoir, affects vulnerability of local population to infection. Infection intensity was higher in population located closer to the reservoir with risk ratio of 2.09 (1.12–4.02) and p-value < 0.01. Patterns of infection intensities among humans were found to match fish infection intensity, where higher infection intensities were associated with fish obtained from the reservoir waterbody type (p-value = 0.023). CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: This study demonstrated the importance of environmental influence and healthcare focus as risk factors of infections in addition to the socio-economic, demographic, and behavioral factors commonly explored in existing studies. The reservoir was identified as a crucial source to target for opisthorchiasis intervention efforts and the need to consider infection intensity in disease control efforts was highlighted. The holistic approach in this study, which underscores the close relationship between the environment, animals, and humans in development of human infections or diseases, is an important contribution to the framework of One Health approach, where consideration of helminth diseases has largely been overlooked. Public Library of Science 2016-12-07 /pmc/articles/PMC5142777/ /pubmed/27926938 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0005175 Text en © 2016 Ong et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 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 author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Ong, Xueyuan Wang, Yi-Chen Sithithaworn, Paiboon Namsanor, Jutamas Taylor, David Laithavewat, Luxana Uncovering the Pathogenic Landscape of Helminth (Opisthorchis viverrini) Infections: A Cross-Sectional Study on Contributions of Physical and Social Environment and Healthcare Interventions |
title | Uncovering the Pathogenic Landscape of Helminth (Opisthorchis viverrini) Infections: A Cross-Sectional Study on Contributions of Physical and Social Environment and Healthcare Interventions |
title_full | Uncovering the Pathogenic Landscape of Helminth (Opisthorchis viverrini) Infections: A Cross-Sectional Study on Contributions of Physical and Social Environment and Healthcare Interventions |
title_fullStr | Uncovering the Pathogenic Landscape of Helminth (Opisthorchis viverrini) Infections: A Cross-Sectional Study on Contributions of Physical and Social Environment and Healthcare Interventions |
title_full_unstemmed | Uncovering the Pathogenic Landscape of Helminth (Opisthorchis viverrini) Infections: A Cross-Sectional Study on Contributions of Physical and Social Environment and Healthcare Interventions |
title_short | Uncovering the Pathogenic Landscape of Helminth (Opisthorchis viverrini) Infections: A Cross-Sectional Study on Contributions of Physical and Social Environment and Healthcare Interventions |
title_sort | uncovering the pathogenic landscape of helminth (opisthorchis viverrini) infections: a cross-sectional study on contributions of physical and social environment and healthcare interventions |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5142777/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27926938 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0005175 |
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