Zoonotic parasitic diseases including helminths and protozoa are common especially in areas with poor living conditions in developing countries. The poor living conditions combined with poor veterinary services and lack of awareness of the zoonotic diseases exacerbates the risks of disease transmission from animals to humans. Dogs serve different purposes, offering several benefits to humans, i...

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) shows how vulnerable we are to disease agents that typically reside, unnoticed, in animal populations. In a sense, the SARS outbreak is nothing new – pathogens have been jumping from wildlife or livestock populations to humans since antiquity, often with devastating results. Recent analyses estimate that about 60% of all infectious disease agents affecti...

The global threat of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) constitutes a public health issue in underdeveloped countries. Zoonotic helminthiases are the most common human NTD agents developing countries sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Americas, causing burden disease that exceeds more recognized infectious such as malaria tuberculosis. Wild canids well-known mammals act natural reservoirs zoonotic-r...

This is the first of a series of review articles in a Special Issue publication on waterborne zoonotic parasites. A brief historical overview of the occurrence and importance of waterborne parasites, dating from early civilization is presented. The article considers the diversity of parasites including protozoa, nematodes, cestodes and trematodes and the related zoonotic organism microsporidia....

Parasitic diseases present a considerable socio-economic impact to society. Zoonotic parasites can result in a considerable burden of disease in people and substantive economic losses to livestock populations. Ameliorating the effects of these diseases may consist of attempts at eradicating specific diseases at a global level, eliminating them at a national or local level or controlling them to...

Crohn's disease may be triggered by an infection, and it is plausible to consider that such an infection may be animal borne and ingested with our food. There has been considerable interest in the past in determining whether Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (M. avium) might be the etiologic agent in Crohn's disease since it causes a disease in cattle that is similar to Crohn's diseas...