J Pediatr Infect Dis 2017; 12(04): 193
DOI: 10.1055/s-0037-1603353
Foreword
Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York

Parasitic Infections in Pediatric Clinical Practice

Veeranoot Nissapatorn
1   Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine Building, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
2   School of Allied Health Sciences, Walailak University, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand
,
Helieh S. Oz
3   Department of Physiology and Internal Medicine, University of Kentucky Medical Center, Lexington, Kentucky, United States
› Institutsangaben
Weitere Informationen

Publikationsverlauf

Publikationsdatum:
07. Juni 2017 (online)

The question arises whether each human subject has ever been exposed or not with the so-called “parasitic infections” since birth. The evidence based on childhood parasitic infections has increasingly been reported worldwide, particularly among children living in rural areas and developing countries. Of no doubt, parasitic infections are the main cause of high morbidity and mortality in pediatric clinical scenarios. It is, therefore, timely for this special issue to highlight the recent updates on parasitic infections ranging from epidemiology, pathogenesis, clinical manifestations, diagnosis, treatment options including nanoparticles and possible preventive strategies.

In brief, toxoplasmosis, one of the TORCH infections, is a congenital condition when an infected pregnant woman can vertically transmit the disease to her fetus. Subsequently, protozoan diseases (e.g., giardiasis, amoebiasis, leishmaniasis, malaria), flukes (e.g., schistosomiasis), and soil-transmitted helminthiasis (e.g., toxocariasis) are amongst common parasitic infections with significant public health impacts discovered during early and late stages of childhood development. The parasitic infections occur due to diverse risk exposures such as mosquito bite, lack of sanitation, consumption of contaminated foods and water as well as intermediate hosts contributing to high infection rates and disease burden in children communities. Besides routine investigation, this issue provides a platform for the future promising diagnostic challenges, which benefits the community and its economical status providing sensible/sensitive and practical purposes, such as how to utilize noninvasive clinical methodology to handle samples by using microwave heat treatment for molecular DNA extraction in malaria diagnosis and application of barcoding for soil-transmitted helminthiasis in infected children as an alternative technique in medical parasitology.

The diversity and in-depth content on relevant parasitic infections can provide useful information to enable pediatricians with a better understanding of the diagnosis and the treatment of the possible parasitic diseases in children and with better outcomes. With early diagnosis and proper treatment, children can live healthier and more prosperously without parasitic diseases to mark their growth and developments from the beginning, in utero, and after that.

Finally, we would like to acknowledge the following reviewers for their remarkable commitments who assisted in achieving the quality of these published articles: Prof. Dr. Cristina C. Salibay, Prof. Dr. Elmeya Safar, Prof. Dr. Ma. de la Luz Galván-Ramírez, Prof. Dr. Sarman Singh, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nongyao Sawangjaroen, Dr. Kruawan Chotelersak, Dr. Manar Ezzelarab Ramadan, and Prof. Dr. Nagwa Mostafa El-Sayed.