Potential risk factors associated with human cystic echinococcosis: a semi-structured questionnaire from a large population-based ultrasound cross-sectional study in Eastern Europe and Turkey
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT Background Cystic echinococcosis (CE) is a neglected parasitic zoonosis prioritized by the WHO for control. Hygiene education is included in CE control campaigns but appears of little impact, and the precise risk factors for human infection are still uncertain. Several works investigated potential risk factors for CE through questionnaires, mostly carried out on small samples, providing contrasting results. We present the analysis of risk factors questionnaires administered to participants to the largest prevalence study on CE conducted in Eastern Europe. Methodology/Principal Findings A semi-structured questionnaire was administered to 24,687 people from rural Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey. CE cases were defined individuals with abdominal CE cysts detected on ultrasound. Variables associated with CE infection at p<0.20 in bivariate analysis were included into a multivariable logistic model, with a random effect to account for clustering at village level. Adjusted odds ratio (AOR) with 95%CI were used to describe the strength of associations. Data were weighted to reflect the relative distribution of the rural population in the study area by country, age group and sex. Valid records from 22,027 people were analyzed. According to the main occupation in the past 20 years, “housewife” (AOR 3.11 [1.51-6.41]) and “retired” (AOR 2.88 [1.09-7.65]) showed significantly higher odds of being infected compared to non-agricultural workers. “Having relatives with CE” (AOR 4.18 [1.77-9.88]) was also associated with higher odds of infection. Dog-related and food/water-related factors were not associated with infection. Conclusions/Significance Our results point to infection being acquired in a “domestic” rural environment and support the view that CE should be considered more a “soil-transmitted” than a “food-borne” infection, acquired through a “hand-to-mouth” mechanism. This result helps delineating the dynamics of infection transmission and have practical implications in the design of specific studies to shed light on actual sources of infection and inform control campaigns. AUTHOR SUMMARY Cystic echinococcosis (CE) is a parasitic disease with high socio-economic impact, mostly affecting pastoral communities. The causative agent, Echinococcus granulosus sensu lato , is naturally transmitted between dogs and livestock; humans acquire infection through accidental ingestion of parasite eggs. Hygiene education is among the strategies of CE control campaigns, but appears of little impact. “Ingestion of contaminated food/water”, and “contact with dogs” are generally mentioned as the sources of human infection, however actual risk factors are still undefined. Several works investigated potential risk factors for human CE infection through questionnaires, mostly carried out on small samples, providing contrasting results. We analysed 22,027 risk factors questionnaires administered to the participants of the largest prevalence study on CE conducted in Eastern Europe. We found that being “housewife” and “retired” as the main occupation in the past 20 years, and “having relatives with CE” were associated with higher odds of CE infection, while dog-related and food/water-related factors were not associated with infection. Our results indicate that CE may be considered more a “soil-transmitted” than a “food-borne” infection, acquired through a “hand-to-mouth” mechanism in a domestic, rural environment. This may help designing specific studies on pathways of transmission of this neglected parasite.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".