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Seasonal variation in the prevalence of Toxocara eggs on children’s playgrounds in the city of Hanover, Germany
BACKGROUND: Roundworms of the genus Toxocara are worldwide distributed zoonotic parasites of carnivores. Based on case numbers and the potential impact on human health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) categorised toxocarosis as one of the most important neglected parasitic disea...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5437484/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28526064 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-017-2193-6 |
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author | Kleine, Annika Springer, Andrea Strube, Christina |
author_facet | Kleine, Annika Springer, Andrea Strube, Christina |
author_sort | Kleine, Annika |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Roundworms of the genus Toxocara are worldwide distributed zoonotic parasites of carnivores. Based on case numbers and the potential impact on human health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) categorised toxocarosis as one of the most important neglected parasitic diseases. As contact with contaminated soil, e.g. in sandpits, is considered the primary transmission route, data on playground contamination are needed to assess infection risk for children. Here, playground contamination rates and their seasonal variation in the city of Hanover, Germany, were investigated. METHODS: Sand samples were collected monthly over a 12-month period on 46 playgrounds in the city of Hanover, Germany. In total, 1,362 samples were examined for Toxocara eggs and analysed statistically for seasonal influences on potential infection risk. RESULTS: Contamination rates ranged from 6.5% (3/46) Toxocara positive sandpits in September to 41.3% (19/46) in February, while contamination with infective embryonated eggs varied between 2.2% (1/46) and 23.9% (11/46). Compared to September, the month with the lowest contamination rate, significantly more sandpits were positive for Toxocara eggs from January to August and in October, while the prevalence of infective Toxocara eggs was significantly increased only in January and February. Regarding egg numbers, significantly higher total counts were observed in October and from December to June, while infective egg counts were significantly increased only in January, February and April. CONCLUSIONS: Compared to data from 1985, contamination rates have dropped from 55.8% to an average of 23.2% in 2011. Even though the observed egg numbers indicate a moderate to low general infection risk, the potential risk to single individuals should not be underestimated, as highly contaminated spots may occur infrequently and independent of season. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13071-017-2193-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5437484 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-54374842017-05-19 Seasonal variation in the prevalence of Toxocara eggs on children’s playgrounds in the city of Hanover, Germany Kleine, Annika Springer, Andrea Strube, Christina Parasit Vectors Research BACKGROUND: Roundworms of the genus Toxocara are worldwide distributed zoonotic parasites of carnivores. Based on case numbers and the potential impact on human health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) categorised toxocarosis as one of the most important neglected parasitic diseases. As contact with contaminated soil, e.g. in sandpits, is considered the primary transmission route, data on playground contamination are needed to assess infection risk for children. Here, playground contamination rates and their seasonal variation in the city of Hanover, Germany, were investigated. METHODS: Sand samples were collected monthly over a 12-month period on 46 playgrounds in the city of Hanover, Germany. In total, 1,362 samples were examined for Toxocara eggs and analysed statistically for seasonal influences on potential infection risk. RESULTS: Contamination rates ranged from 6.5% (3/46) Toxocara positive sandpits in September to 41.3% (19/46) in February, while contamination with infective embryonated eggs varied between 2.2% (1/46) and 23.9% (11/46). Compared to September, the month with the lowest contamination rate, significantly more sandpits were positive for Toxocara eggs from January to August and in October, while the prevalence of infective Toxocara eggs was significantly increased only in January and February. Regarding egg numbers, significantly higher total counts were observed in October and from December to June, while infective egg counts were significantly increased only in January, February and April. CONCLUSIONS: Compared to data from 1985, contamination rates have dropped from 55.8% to an average of 23.2% in 2011. Even though the observed egg numbers indicate a moderate to low general infection risk, the potential risk to single individuals should not be underestimated, as highly contaminated spots may occur infrequently and independent of season. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13071-017-2193-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2017-05-19 /pmc/articles/PMC5437484/ /pubmed/28526064 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-017-2193-6 Text en © The Author(s). 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Kleine, Annika Springer, Andrea Strube, Christina Seasonal variation in the prevalence of Toxocara eggs on children’s playgrounds in the city of Hanover, Germany |
title | Seasonal variation in the prevalence of Toxocara eggs on children’s playgrounds in the city of Hanover, Germany |
title_full | Seasonal variation in the prevalence of Toxocara eggs on children’s playgrounds in the city of Hanover, Germany |
title_fullStr | Seasonal variation in the prevalence of Toxocara eggs on children’s playgrounds in the city of Hanover, Germany |
title_full_unstemmed | Seasonal variation in the prevalence of Toxocara eggs on children’s playgrounds in the city of Hanover, Germany |
title_short | Seasonal variation in the prevalence of Toxocara eggs on children’s playgrounds in the city of Hanover, Germany |
title_sort | seasonal variation in the prevalence of toxocara eggs on children’s playgrounds in the city of hanover, germany |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5437484/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28526064 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-017-2193-6 |
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