P R Torgerson

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..However, cost per DALY averted would be less than 25 U.S. dollars dollars for the human health sector if cost sharing was implemented between the public health and agricultural sectors based on proportional benefit from control...

..This is due to the potentiating effects of attacking the parasite at two places in its life cycle. This should result in considerable cost savings over the use intensive anthelmintic treatment as the sole method of control...

..Effective measures that are affordable are vital if the parasite is to be controlled in poor countries...

..Estimates of the financial burden of disease are beneficial in deciding priorities for control. They are also potentially useful tools to lobby donors or non-governmental organizations to fund control programs in poor countries...

..In common with other similar studies, there was no evidence of parasite-induced immunity in sheep or cattle in Kazakhstan due to natural infection. The highest abundance and prevalence were seen in the oldest age classes of animals...

..With this village population of dogs, the best fit indicated negligible herd immunity...

..By understanding of the transmission biology, including mathematical modelling, alternative and cost-effective means of control can be developed...

..In the latter situation, worst and best case scenarios can be estimated and likely frequency distributions of the unknown parameters can be included in the model...

..Village and urban dogs have a considerably lower prevalence...

..In addition the age structure of the canid population could affect transmission...

..The results of the study indicate that the most likely range of annual economic losses attributable to CE in Jordan (encompassing 95% confidence limits) is from U.S.$2 602 215-6533 661, with a median of U.S.$3 874 070...

..They also demonstrate that traditional coproscopy can be very efficient if there is repeated sampling, resulting in sensitivity of approximately 92%...

..multilocularis of 11% (CIs 6-29%) compared with 26% in free-roaming dogs (CIs 17-44%) and independently within these groups hunting dogs were more likely to be infected than non-hunting dogs...

..The common tradition of grazing animals from different farms on prealpine and alpine pastures could favour the spread of resistant populations within the country...

..Egg shedding and seroprevalence was significantly reduced in cows on farms complying with the control recommendations but was not reduced on farms that had not complied...

..The greater the population size collected from a habitat also increased the risk of an individual snail being infected...

..Assuming that the long-term morbidity demonstrated does have an economic effect, each year CE in Wales is probably costing the U.K. economy more than U.S.$1 million, and perhaps as much as U.S.$7.9 million...

..The results are discussed in relation to the importance of controlling livestock before importation...

..5-8 cm with a volume of fluid ranging from 0.2 to 50 ml. It is hypothesised that removal of old sheep through a culling programme could substantially improve the control of cystic echinococcosis...

..The lower R0 in goats, together with the higher asymptotic age-intensity and age-prevalences, indicates that goats acquire immunity more slowly to T hydatigena in comparison to sheep. Taenia ovis was not detected in any animals...

..No significant association was found between many of the well-established risk factors, such as dog or farm ownership, and treatment for CE, although women were more likely to have been treated for the disease than men...

..Infested farm animals often presented with excoriation, alopecia, pruritis and hyperkeratitis particularly on the lower limbs. These signs are consistent with the generation of flea-bite hypersensitivity...

..The estimate of the maximum cost (U.S.$22.1 million/year) also included the production losses resulting from lower livestock efficiency and the reduced income of individuals with morbidity attributable to the disease...

..This study demonstrates the widespread contamination of the environment with E. granulosus eggs in an Echinococcus-endemic area and thus the potential for indirect transmission of E. granulosus to humans from such sources...

..This is because the prevalences of E. multolocularis and Mesocestoides spp. were the highest (and hence had fewest zero counts) yet the parasite distribution nevertheless gave a better fit to the zero-inflated models...

..This situation suggests that an increase in the diagnosis of echinococcosis is an unlikely explanation for the epidemic but that there is an increase in transmission to the human population...

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..Most of the losses arise from reduced milk yield and reduced fertility, and smaller losses are due to reduced meat production and the condemnation of livers...

..The discrepancy observed between the fungus efficacy in coprocultures and on pasture, which was also observed in several other studies deserves further research...

..However, individuals who grew their own vegetables had a significantly decreased risk of acquiring CE (OR = 0.30; CI = 0.08-0.98). There was evidence of widespread ignorance of the disease and how it is transmitted...

..When a logistic regression model was constructed, only recumbency, excitement and a weak or absent menace reflex remained significant factors affecting the likelihood of survival...

..4% of the rural population may have sub-clinical CE. Analysis of the possible risk factors in the cross-sectional study revealed that subjects who had CE were less likely to use well water as their water supply than non-infected subjects...

..Here, we discuss analytical approaches to population studies of echinococcosis...

..The average infection rate and the clump size distribution are comparable in both data sets. Goodness-of-fit measures indicate that the model fits the data reasonably well...

..Male dogs were more likely to be infected with Echinococcus spp. than female dogs (P<0.05) and dogs allowed to roam were more likely to be infected with E. multilocularis (P<0.05)...

..and Echinococcus spp. were negative in both PCRs. The combination of egg isolation and PCR will also be of value in epidemiological studies when investigating environmental samples...

..This study has clearly shown that the impact of DALYs lost due to echinococcosis, in terms of medical treatment costs, lost income, and physical and social suffering, is likely to be substantial in this highly endemic region of China...

..29-0.77, infections per year for E. multilocularis assuming a 5 month parasite lifespan or 0.85, with a 95% credibility interval of 0.47-1.25 infections per year, assuming a 3 month E. multilocularis lifespan in dogs...

..The method presented is widely applicable and easily generalized to many types of epidemiological studies...

..The numbers of larvae did not vary significantly with age, which may be due to a lack of acquired protective immunity or to tolerance after repeated exposure...

..Using Echinococcus spp. as a model organism, this manuscript gives a brief overview of the types of descriptors of parasite densities, how to estimate them and on the use of these estimates in a transmission model...

..To determine the extent of carnivore-transmitted parasitic zoonoses in a community in eastern Kazakhstan, a region where cystic echinococcosis (CE) re-emerged in recent years...

..Alveolar echinococcosis (AE) is a serious liver disease. The aim of this study was to explore the long-term prognosis of AE patients, the burden of this disease in Switzerland and the cost-effectiveness of treatment...

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..The results of the current study indicate that milk amyloid A exhibits good correlation with established cell-based indicators of intramammary inflammation...

..Simplified sampling techniques used in this study, and statistical analysis based on bootstrapping, could prove useful in other parasitologic surveys of wildlife in remote areas...

..In this article, we review the framework used to assess the burden of cysticercosis and echinococcosis, and the data needed to estimate the extent of the problem for societies...

..These included circling (86%), head pressing (52%), blindness (29%) and paresis (40%). Coenurosis is a sheep-health problem and an important cause of sheep culling in Jordan...

..98 (95% CI: 0.80-1.24, not significant) for B. caballi; in contrast, the prevalence of T. equi in Przewalski's horses was significantly lower than expected (SPR = 0.51, 95% CI: 0.50-0.64)...