Dear Colleagues,

Echinococcosis is a neglected tropical disease (NTD) that affects more than 1 million people living with this disease at one time, manifested mostly as cystic or alveolar echinococcosis (CE or AE, respectively). Many of these individuals will develop severe clinical syndromes, which are life-threatening if left untreated, and there are an estimated 19,300 deaths and around 871,000 disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) globally each year. As this is a zoonotic disease, there are also costs associated with cystic echinococcosis that are estimated to be US$ 3 billion for treatment and losses to the livestock industry (1). The World Health Organization´s response to this disease aims at strengthening control and prevention through the creation of an Informal Working Group on Echinococcosis (WHO-IWGE), in collaboration with strategic partners and relevant sectors (2). Therefore, the aim of the Special Issue is to gather studies that could help with the different aspects of the disease that need to be further developed, according to the new roadmap for NTDs 2020–2030 (3), namely:

• Diagnosis and associated clinical management of echinococcosis for the elaboration of technical manuals with practical applicability;
• Collection and mapping of epidemiological data in order to detect risk areas, establish priorities, and monitor progress and evaluate outcomes;
• Control measures taking dogs and livestock into consideration as part of a One Health approach (including innovative treatment and vaccines).

Submitted works could focus specifically on one of these aspects, or can describe control and prevention programs that take all of these aspects into consideration.   

1) WHO webpage. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/echinococcosis. Accessed on February 9th 2021.

2) WHO, 2017. Meeting of the WHO Informal Working Group on Echinococcosis (WHO-IWGE), Geneva, Switzerland, 15–16 December 2016. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; 2017 (WHO/HTM/NTD/NZD/2017.01).

3) WHO 2021. Ending the neglect to attain the Sustainable Development Goals: a roadmap for neglected tropical diseases 2021-2030. Overview. Geneva, Switzeerland: World Health Organization 2020 (WHO/UCN/NTD/2020.01).

Dr. Maria Victoria Periago
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Parasitologia is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• cystic and alveolar echinococcosis
• diagnosis
• clinical management
• epidemiological data
• One Health
• treatment
• vaccines