The real impact of twenty neglected tropical diseases could be ten times greater, according to experts; more information and surveillance of travelers at risk is needed
From Dengue to chikungunyafrom the strongyloidosis to echinococcosis: there are twenty neglected tropical diseases, ignored by citizens and often also by scientific research. They affect over a billion people worldwideespecially in the poorest countries, but we too should know them better since they are registered in Italy over four thousand cases a year and an “undeclared” that could reach ten times as much. This was underlined by the experts of the IRCCS Don Calabria of Negrar, WHO Collaborating Center on strongyloidosis and other neglected diseases, on the occasion of the World Day of 30 January during a meeting of the WHO Technical Group on Chagas disease, of which Italy is at the second place in Europe for diffusion.
Global problem
The misunderstanding to be avoided is precisely the idea that these are problems that cannot concern us: neglected tropical diseases, a heterogeneous group of mostly infectious diseases caused by parasites, bacteria, fungi and toxinscan also land in Italy because as a specification Federico Gobbidirector of the Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases of the IRCCS Negrar, «as the pandemic has confirmed to us, health and disease today are to be considered global phenomena: a disease present in one part of the world can quickly travel and reach any other place thanks to the mobility of people, food, animals and with the help of climate change. Decrease infections and disease circulation with proper monitoring is necessary to reduce the danger globally. Surveillance of travelers who have gone to countries at risk is therefore considered essential, as well as less onerous than the costs that are instead necessary to treat any cases.
Lots of patients
This is true for Chagas disease to which the Negrar conference is dedicated, but also for the dengueof which an autochthonous epidemic has occurred in Italy, the chikungunyawith two epidemics in the country in recent years, and the strongyloidosis, a pathology that has made a comeback during the pandemic. Caused by a parasite to which about 1 percent of elderly Italians are positive, it has reappeared because, as he explains Dora Buonfratedirector of the WHO Collaborating Center on Strongyloidosis and other Neglected Diseases at Negrar, «people positive for the parasite responsible for strongyloidosis they are mostly over 65 who have come into contact with it in recent decades, walking barefoot in the countryside or touching soil contaminated with human feces, two occurrences that are much less likely today. Symptoms can be as trivial as a simple itch, but if the patient is immunosuppressed the disease can worsen until it becomes fatal: this is the risk that was taken by some during the pandemic, when cortisone therapies for Covid-19 lowered the immune defenses and unmasked strongyloidosis in many elderly people. Adequate surveillance and early diagnosis are therefore the weapons to combat this, but also other neglected tropical diseases”.
January 30, 2023 (change January 30, 2023 | 12:50)
© REPRODUCTION RESERVED
#Forgotten #tropical #diseases #thousand #cases #year #Italy