Neglected Tropical Diseases - Latin America and the Caribbean

by Franco-paredes, Carlos; Santos-preciado, Jose´ Ignacio

• ISBN13: 9783709114216
• ISBN10: 3709114217
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-05-21
• Publisher: Springer Verlag

Summary

The neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) represent some of the most common infections of the poorest people living in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC). Because they primarily afflict the poor as well as selected indigenous populations and people of African descent, the NTDs in LAC are largely forgotten diseases. Yet, their collective disease burden may exceed better known conditions such as of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, or malaria. Based on their prevalence and healthy life years lost from disability, hookworm infection, other soil-transmitted helminth infections and Chagas disease are the most important NTDs in LAC, followed by dengue, schistosomiasis, leishmaniasis, trachoma, leprosy, and lymphatic filariasis. On the other hand, for some important NTDs, such as leptospirosis and cysticercosis, disease burden estimates are not available. The NTDs in LAC geographically concentrate in 11 different sub-regions, each with a distinctive human and environmental ecology.Each chapter of this volume deals with a major disease. Topics like disease burden, major manifestations and approaches to control and elimination of NTDs in Latin America are discussed in detail. It is therefore of general interest for basic researchers and clinicians engaged in infectious disease and parasitology and a must have for scientists specialized in the characteristics of this geographic region of the world.