The Global Prevalence of Strongyloides stercoralis Infection

Abstract

Strongyloidiasis is a common neglected tropical disease in tropical and sub-tropical climatic zones. At the worldwide level, there is high uncertainty about the strongyloidiasis burden. This uncertainty represents an important knowledge gap since it affects the planning of interventions to reduce the burden of strongyloidiasis in endemic countries. This study aimed to estimate the global strongyloidiasis prevalence. A literature review was performed to obtain prevalence data from endemic countries at a worldwide level from 1990 to 2016. For each study, the true population prevalence was calculated by accounting for the specificity and the sensitivity of testing and age of tested individuals. Prediction of strongyloidiasis prevalence for each country was performed using a spatiotemporal statistical modeling approach. The country prevalence obtained from the model was used to estimate the number of infected people per country. We estimate the global prevalence of strongyloidiasis in 2017 to be 8.1% (95% CI: 4.2–12.4%), corresponding to 613.9 (95% CI: 313.1–910.1) million people infected. The South-East Asia, African, and Western Pacific Regions accounted for 76.1% of the global infections. Our results could be used to identify those countries in which strongyloidiasis prevalence is highest and where mass drug administration (MDA) should be deployed for its prevention and control.