UMEM Educational Pearls

Title: Neglected Parasitic Infections (NPIs) in the United States

Keywords: parasites, infectious diseases (PubMed Search)

Posted: 6/17/2015 by Jon Mark Hirshon, MD, MPH, PhD (Updated: 4/26/2024)
Click here to contact Jon Mark Hirshon, MD, MPH, PhD

While most infections from parasites are associated with poor communities in low-income countries, there are still some important parasitic infections found in the United States.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has identified 5 parasitic diseases as priorities for public health action based upon:

Number of infected individuals
Severity of illness
Ability to prevent and treat the diseases

These are

Chagas Disease
- More than 300,000 people in the U.S. are infected with Trypanosoma cruzi, the parasite that causes Chagas disease
Cysticercosis
- At least 1,000 people are hospitalized annually with neurocysticercosis
Toxocariasis
- 70 individuals, mostly children are blinded annually from toxocariasis
Toxoplasmosis
- More than 60 million individuals carry Toxoplasma gondii, but it usually doesn’t cause symptoms in immunologically competent individuals.
- However, it is the 2^nd leading cause of death from foodborne illness and it can cause severe problems during pregnancy and in immunocompromised individuals.
Trichomoniasis
- 3% of women in the U.S. are infected with this sexually transmitted parasite
- 1.1 million people newly infected annually

Bottom line:

Remember to keep your differential broad and maintain awareness of these generally unusual but important infections.

References

http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/npi/