Prevalence and risk of cysticercosis and taeniasis in an urban population of soldiers and their relatives.

Abstract

Abstract. To determine markers of Taenia solium transmission and risk factors in an urban community, we studied 1,000 soldiers from a military camp in Mexico City and their relatives. Serum samples were used to detect antigens and antibodies and fecal specimens were examined for Taenia coproantigens and helminth eggs. Prevalences of 12.2% and 5.8% for cysticercosis were found among soldiers and their relatives, respectively. Taeniasis was found in 0.5% and none of the groups, respectively. Relatives of soldiers positive for cysticercosis and taeniasis markers ate more pork from street stores than restaurants or markets compared with relatives of soldiers without these indicators of infection. Also, 12.0% of the relatives of positive soldiers had a history of expelling tapeworm proglottids in the feces in contrast to 3.7% of the family members of the control group. Prevalence values and risk factors in this urban population are similar to those of previous studies performed in rural populations.Taeniasis and cysticercosis caused by the tapeworm Taenia solium are prevalent in humans in many developing countries of Latin America, Africa, and Asia that lack proper sanitary infrastructure and adequate hygienic conditions. 1,2 As a result of migration from endemic areas, an increase in neurocysticercosis cases has also occurred in developed countries. 3 Human neurocysticercosis is a disabling and occasionally fatal disease.

Short report: seroprevalence of Taenia solium cysticercosis in pigs in Bahia State, northeastern Brazil.

“…11,12 In Bahia, poor sanitary conditions and pig husbandry are commonly observed not only in rural areas, but also in urban areas, even in the capital. Residents who do not have latrines defecate outdoors, and water contaminated with filth from a dumping ground and/or a house latrine runs into the open sewer.…”

Epidemiology of Neurocysticercosis in Mexico: From a Public Health Problem to Its Control

“…Lastly, 86% of the family members of positive soldiers had eaten in street food stores, compared to only 62.5% of those of negative soldiers. Both risk factors identified were statistically significant, indicating again, that the main risk factor was an association with the presence of a tapeworm carrier at home confirming its importance for the transmission of T. solium [28]. Therefore, a clinical history of taeniosis in a family member, defined as elimination of proglottids in feces, should be taken into account by health personnel in order to be treated in spite of being asymptomatic, and to prevent other members of the family from becoming infected.…”

“…Many epidemiological surveys were performed with ELISA in the 1980´s, supported by direct detection of cysticerci in pigs' tongue and tapeworm eggs in human feces [27,28,[30][31][32][33][34] and, in the 1990's, by western blot (WB) [27,30,[35][36][37][38][39][40][41] using an enriched fraction of glycoproteins as antigen source [42] allowing the demonstration of the presence of all the components of the life cycle (Tables 2 and 3), [24]). When data from table 1 are compared to those of tables 2 and 3, it is evident that the prevalence of anti-cysticercus antibodies in humans (2.3-24%) is much higher than the finding of the parasite in pathology studies (0.02-5.9%), indicating that antibodies reflect exposure and not necessary the presence of the parasite; its serologic confirmation can be obtained by detecting cysticercal antigens.…”

Neurocysticercosis: Current knowledge and advances

“…Radiologic studies are imperfect for epidemiology because suspicious lesions may not always indicate NCC. The best data are clinical epidemiologic studies that are available from a few geographic areas, with the strongest being those from Mexico, Peru, and the United States [3][4][5][6][7][8]. The US studies confirm a high prevalence of the disorder among Hispanic immigrants, document the occasional autochthonously transmitted case, and attest to a slightly higher risk of tapeworm carriage among contacts of US cases.…”