Zoonotic Helminths and Their Influences on Humans

Abstract

Zoonotic helminths are big health concerns for both human and animals. Such concerns are brought to attention only after Centres for Diseases Control and Prevention decided to categorize a few helminth-related infection as Neglected Tropical Disease. Over the years, researchers were only able to study the more prevalent zoonotic helminths due to the large variety of the species. However, as more and more people start to pay attention to helminths disease, more species have been found parasitic to human. Helminthes have been generally classified into three basic groups: Flukes (trematodes), Tapeworms (Cestodes), and Roundworms (Nematodes). According to the existing medical technology, although helminths are not fatal to human if properly treated, current medical treatment cannot grant complete immunity to both the parasites and the infection. There are still a large number of people in the world are infected. In fact, parasitic helminths have infected roughly 16% of the global population. In order to treat helminths more effectively, the focus has been shifted from traditional medication to molecular treatment and general genome manipulation. This article summarized physiology of different types of helminths, and emphasized the importance of understanding helminths by elaborating on a few previous studies on the more commonly studied species. Moreover, this article discussed some area of interest that could be further researched in the future.