Current status of food-borne parasitic zoonoses--eastern Europe.

For this review, the countries of Eastern Europe are the USSR and Poland (in the eastern part of the European continent), what was formerly East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary (in the north and center), and Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania (to the south). During 1989 and 1990, all of these countries experienced remarkable political and social change, thereby making the term "Eastern Europe" a political anachronism. There are a great many differences among these countries in terms of human behavior, parasites, environment and animal husbandry practices. In spite of recent political changes, however, livestock husbandry practices, which affect the status of food-borne parasites, will not likely change in the near future. Some of the characteristics of the eastern European countries allow the epidemiology of food parasitic zoonoses to be discussed as a common problem.

Epidemiology of swine trichinellosis in Yugoslavia.

Intensive epidemiological and seroepidemiological studies of Trichinella spiralis infection in swine have been carried out in the borough of Kladovo, one of the four regions in Yugoslavia where trichinellosis is endemic. A high prevalence (4.7%) of trichinellosis was discovered in three neighboring parishes adjoining the bank of the river Danube. Both geographically and epidemiologically these three parishes constitute a very unique condition that is very vulnerable to T. spiralis infection. Studies of 7,409 swine showed that the ELISA test for the detection of specific antibodies to T. spiralis in swine was highly reliable.