Please cite this article in press as: Torgerson, P.R., Macpherson, C.N.L., The socioeconomic burden of parasitic zoonoses: Global trends. Vet. Parasitol. (2011), doi:10.1016/j.vetpar.2011.07.017 ARTICLE IN PRESS G Model VETPAR-5945; No. of Pages 17 Veterinary Parasitology xxx (2011) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Veterinary Parasitology jo u rn al hom epa ge : www.elsevier.com/locate/vetpar The socioeconomic burden of parasitic zoonoses: Global trends Paul R. Torgerson a,* , Calum N.L. Macpherson b a Division of Epidemiology, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland b St George’s University, St George, Grenada, West Indies a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Disease burden, Parasitic zoonoses, Economics, DALY, Emerging diseases a b s t r a c t Diseases resulting from zoonotic transmission of parasites are common. Humans become infected through food, water, soil and close contact with animals. Most parasitic zoonoses are neglected diseases despite causing a considerable global burden of ill health in humans and having a substantial financial burden on livestock industries. This review aims to bring together the current data available on global burden estimates of parasitic zoonoses and indicate any changes in the trends of these diseases. There is a clear need of such infor- mation as interventions to control zoonoses are often in their animal hosts. The costs of such interventions together with animal health issues will drive the cost effectiveness of intervention strategies. What is apparent is that collectively, parasitic zoonoses probably have a similar human disease burden to any one of the big three human infectious diseases: malaria, tuberculosis or HIV in addition to animal health burden. Although the global bur- den for most parasitic zoonoses is not yet known, the major contributors to the global burden of parasitic zoonoses are toxoplasmosis, food borne trematode infections, cysticer- cosis, echinococcosis, leishmaniosis and zoonotic schistosomosis. In addition, diarrhoea resulting from zoonotic protozoa may have a significant impact. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Of the nearly 1500 agents known to be infectious to humans, 66 are protozoa and 287 are helminths infectious agents, 66 are protozoa and 287 are helminths (Chomel, 2008; Taylor et al., 2001). The majority (60.3%) of emerg- ing infectious diseases are zoonoses (Jones et al., 2008). Zoonoses represent a large burden of disease and there are changing patterns of disease burdens with disease emergence. Human population growth and socioeconomic changes result in the migration of populations into new ecological regions and changes in animal husbandry prac- tices which can impact on disease emergence and disease burden (Macpherson, 2005). In addition improved diagnos- tics are demonstrating that many zoonoses have a higher burden then previously recognised. Some new syndromes * Corresponding author. Tel.: +41 44 635 90 41. E-mail address: paul.torgerson@access.uzh.ch (P.R. Torgerson). are also being attributed to parasitic zoonoses and hence add to the disease burden. Global warming may change the transmission dynamics of parasitic zoonoses in endemic areas and enable some parasites to transmit in regions where they were previously absent. 2. Disease burden and its calculation Disease burden is the impact of a disease on society measured by financial cost, mortality, morbidity, or other indicators. Calculating the total burden in monetary terms has the advantage that, with zoonoses, there may be sub- stantial animal health losses and hence both the human and animal health losses can be calculated in one figure. For several diseases monetary costs have been defined and these are given where available. Monetary costs include loss of productivity in animals and treatment costs and loss of income in individuals affected by the disease. How- ever, the absolute cost of treatment and convalescence of human patients is higher in high income countries than 0304-4017/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.vetpar.2011.07.017