GRID FOR

NEUROCYSTICERCOSIS

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Background

• Taenia solium, the zoonotic pork tapeworm, is endemic in many of the poorest countries of the world where pig keeping and pork consumption occur.
• Tapeworm eggs released in human faeces are an environmental health risk for humans and pigs.
  
• Humans may become infected with the larval form of the parasite if they ingest T. solium eggs after coming into direct or indirect contact with human tapeworm carriers, thus people who neither raise pigs nor consume pork are also at risk of cysticercosis.
  
• Neurocysticercosis, resulting from T. solium larvae developing in the central nervous system, is a common preventable cause of epilepsy, affecting human health and productivity.
• In addition to epilepsy, human cysticercosis may also cause skin nodules, severe headache, blindness, and other clinical manifestations including death.
  
• Pig keeping and pork consumption in the Eastern & Southern Africa (ESA) Region and other developing areas of the world have increased significantly during the past decade, especially in rural and peri-urban smallholder communities.
  
• Porcine cysticercosis usually affects the whole carcass of the pig resulting in its total condemnation, creating an obstacle to the marketing of pigs and seriously reducing the farmers' household economy.
  
• Conditions related to poverty, such as inadequate sanitation, poor pig management practices and lack or absence of meat inspection and control, allow the establishment of the T. solium lifecycle.
  
• Cysticercosis makes pork unsafe to eat thereby promoting protein-energy malnutrition.
  
• Porcine cysticercosis is a barrier to regional and international trading of pigs and pork.
  
• There is a general lack of awareness at all levels of the presence and impact of T. solium in ESA and other endemic regions of the world.
  
• Tools are now available for diagnosis and treatment of cysticercosis/taeniosis.
  
• Cysticercosis caused by T. solium has been identified as one of only six infectious diseases deemed potentially eradicable by an international task force.

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