Differential Change in the Prevalence of the Ascaris, Trichuris and Clonorchis infection Among Past East Asian Populations.
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Publication Date
2019-12-31Journal Title
The Korean journal of parasitology
ISSN
0023-4001
Publisher
The Korean Society for Parasitology
Volume
57
Issue
6
Pages
601-605
Language
eng
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Physical Medium
Print-Electronic
Metadata
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Zhan, X., Yeh, H., Shin, D. H., Chai, J., Seo, M., & Mitchell, P. (2019). Differential Change in the Prevalence of the Ascaris, Trichuris and Clonorchis infection Among Past East Asian Populations.. The Korean journal of parasitology, 57 (6), 601-605. https://doi.org/10.3347/kjp.2019.57.6.601
Abstract
Abstract: As we learn more about parasites in ancient civilizations, data becomes available that can be used to see how infection may change over time. The aim of this study is to assess how common certain intestinal parasites were in China and Korea in the past 2000 years, and make comparisons with prevalence data from the 20th century. This allows us to go on to investigate how and why changes in parasite prevalence may have occurred at different times. Here we show that Chinese liver fluke (Clonorchis sinensis) dropped markedly in prevalence in both Korea and China earlier than did roundworm (Ascaris lumbricoides) and whipworm (Trichuris trichiura). We use historical evidence to determine why this was the case, exploring the role of developing sanitation infrastructure, changing use of human feces as crop fertilizer, development of chemical fertilizers, snail control programs, changing dietary preferences, and governmental public health campaigns during the 20th century.
Keywords
Animals, Humans, Trichuris, Ascaris, Clonorchis sinensis, Trichuriasis, Ascariasis, Clonorchiasis, History, Ancient, History, Medieval, History, 15th Century, History, 16th Century, History, 20th Century, China, Republic of Korea
Sponsorship
none
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.3347/kjp.2019.57.6.601
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/300440
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
Licence URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/