Hydatidosis- chinococcosis in Libya (review article)

Cystic echinococcosis due to Echinococcus granulosus is a serious public health and livestock economy problem in Libya. The present paper reviewed and summarized all data available on hydatidosis since 1970. In Libya, the disease was described as hyper-endemic (Matossian et al., 1977). However, many reports, used the term endemic (Dar and Taguri, 1979; Gebreel et al., 1983; Shaafie et al., 1999). The term is more realistic as the incidence of the disease within the Libyan population was >1 per 100,000 (Shambesh, 1997) and rate of hydatidosis in sheep was about 12.7% (Gusbi et al., 1987). The values did not fulfill WHO criteria to describe hyper-endemic (i.e. surgically >10 per 100,000 and 50% rate in sheep (Craig et al., 1991).