Toxocara canis, the common roundworm in the dog, can cause "visceral larva migrans" syndrome in humans, which may include generalised illness, eosinophilia, and symptoms arising from larval invasion of different organs. Of these, the clinically most important are liver, lungs, eyes and CNS. Involvement of the different parts of the CNS in human toxocaral disease has been described, but not the ...

Toxocara canis (Nematoda: Ascaridae) is an intestinal nematode parasite of dogs, which can also cause disease in humans. Transmission to humans usually occurs because of direct contact with T. canis eggs present in soil contaminated with the feces of infected dogs. This nematode has extraordinary abilities to survive for many years in different tissues of vertebrates, and develop to maturity in...

BACKGROUND Human toxocariasis, a helminthozoonosis, is due to the migration of Toxocara species larvae into human organisms. Humans, especially children become infected by ingesting of embryonated eggs from soil, dirty hands, and raw vegetables. Seroprevalence of this infection is high in developed countries, especially in rural areas. The aim of this study was to investigate the seroepidemiolo...

BACKGROUND Visceral toxocariasis is a parasitic zoonosis caused by Toxocara canis. The prevalence of this parasite in dogs, soil contamination and the resistance of eggs increase human exposure to the disease. Moreover, the difficulties of the control measures justify the need for alternative ones. AIMS The objective of this study was to evaluate the in vitro ovicidal activity of fungi isolat...

Human fascioliasis due to unknown species and animal fascioliasis caused by both or one of Fasciola spp. are commonly seen in Iran. To compare electrophoretic patterns of somatic and excretory-secretory antigens of F. hepatica and F. gigantica  by sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), the adult flukes were collected from infected slaughtered bovine livers. E/S a...

I n this issue of The Journal of Experimental Medicine , Tuohy et al. study the spreading of the autoimmune response to myelin antigens in experimental autoimmune encephalo-myelitis (EAE) and its likely human counterpart, multiple sclerosis (MS) (1). They demonstrate that as disease develops in EAE and MS, reactivity to the initiating antigen diminishes , and an orderly and definable set of new...

Diagnosis of human toxocariasis currently relies on serologic tests that use Toxocara excretory-secretory (TES) antigen to detect immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies to the larvae. In general, however, these assays do not have adequate specificity for use in countries in which other soil-transmitted helminths are endemic. The use of recombinant antigens in these assays, however, is promising for ...