From the Environment to Detection: Integrating Ecological Drivers and Environmental Detection for Helminths in...

Neglected tropical parasites including soil-transmitted helminths, food-borne helminths and schistosomes remain a public health concern across much of the world including Southeast Asia. Abiotic and biotic environmental drivers not only directly impact helminth transmission but are also essential parameters for stable intermediate host ecologies. These environmental risk factors thus must be considered for disease control. To better understand the role of the environment, ongoing and new areas of research and the expansion of monitoring techniques such as environmental DNA are on the rise. This review will highlight the importance of environmental factors and influences in the survival and transmission of helminths directly and the distribution of their intermediate hosts. Focusing on research based in Southeast Asia due to the region's ideal climate for parasite disease transmission. The diversity of tropical and subtropical climates and environmental conditions, with warmer temperatures and higher humidity, promotes helminth lifecycles, including the requirements of intermediate hosts. We discuss how research into helminth ecology provides an improved understanding of how to monitor and control regionally endemic helminths. Moreover, the integration of environmental drivers with eDNA approaches offers a promising new framework for linking helminth ecology and environmental surveillance.