Helminthiases in the People's Republic of China: Status and prospects

Helminth infections, many of them listed as neglected tropical diseases by the World Health Organization, remain a public health issue in many parts of the world. The People's Republic of China (P.R. China) stands out due to impressive progress in the control and local elimination of helminth infections. An important contextual factor is P.R. China's sustained social and economic development that allowed implementation of health-related poverty alleviation, improving water, sanitation and hygiene, enhancing information, education and communication, coupled with major engineering and infrastructure development and intersectoral collaboration. Nonetheless, food-borne trematodiases, soil-transmitted helminthiases, echinococcosis, cysticercosis/taeniasis and schistosomiasis still exert a considerable burden in P.R. China, even though the numbers of infected people have decreased substantially since the new millennium. This special issue of Acta Tropica provides a comprehensive update of the current knowledge of the main helminth infections in P.R. China, summarises progress in research and discusses future prospects for gaining and sustaining control towards the final goal of breaking transmission and hence, eliminating helminthiases. It consists of 34 articles with a wide coverage that can be grouped into six domains: (i) epidemiological assessment and disease burden estimates; (ii) diagnostics and antigen characterisation; (iii) drug and vaccine development; (iv) host-parasite interactions and snail genetics; (v) surveillance and public health response; and (vi) capacity building and international cooperation. The control and elimination of helminthiases not only furthers the health and wellbeing of the Chinese people, but also provides innovative approaches, tools and strategies, which can be adopted and applied in other countries and regions of the world where helminthiases still prevail.