Trichinellosis in Thailand: Epidemiology,Prevention and Control

Trichinellosis (trichinosis), a helminthic zoonotic disease caused by parasitic nematodes of thegenus Trichinella, can be transmitted from animals to humans. The disease is distributedworld-wide and has been the source of major public-health problems in many countries, includingArgentina, Mexico, China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, and some European countries. Human infectionoccurs by ingesting the raw, or inadequately cooked, meat of animals harboring infective larvae. Themain sources of human infection are pork and pork products, game meat, and horse meat. Since1962, trichinellosis outbreaks have occurred almost every year in Thailand, with more than 6,000infected cases. The causative agents of the Thai outbreaks have mostly been encapsulated T. spiralislarvae. However, in 1994, there was an outbreak due to T. pseudospiralis in Chumphon Province,southern Thailand. This was the first report of an outbreak in Thailand due to infection with nonencapsulatedTrichinella larvae. Subsequently, in 2006 and 2007, two outbreaks due to T. papuae, alsoknown to have non-encapsulated larvae, were reported in Uthai Thani Province. Health education forvillagers in rural communities is important, to prevent and control trichinellosis and other parasiticinfections.