Monday, 4 December 2023 to Tuesday, 5 December 2023
Recent cross-border parasite outbreaks in Europe involving different emerging human parasites such as Cryptosporidium spp. (Pinto et al., 2021) and future threats related to globalisation, climate and vector ecology changes (Momčilović et al., 2019), for example parasitic infections in non-endemic regions such as Schistosoma haematobium in Corsica (France) (Boissier et al., 2016), Plasmodium falciparum in Italy (Day, 2017) or Entamoeba histolytica in Spain and other developed countries (Escolà-Vergé et al., 2017), have highlighted the relevance of appropriate, effective and rapid responses from different animal, environmental and human health professionals and authorities, to tackle these human threats and prevent significant economic loss in food and livestock industries.
Thus, the European Union is funding different joint actions to improve preparedness and response capacities, including at points of entry, to prevent and combat cross-border health threats (Janiec et al., 2021), as well as to develop robust public health infrastructures for surveillance, vector control and notification of parasitic diseases (van der Giessen et al., 2021). Moreover, the World Health Organisation/Europe supports different strategies and partnerships to contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals related to reduce the burden of vector-borne and parasitic diseases.
The proposed Symposium will report on the state-of-the-art information regarding this concerning public health threat by providing an opportunity for combining world leading research and methodologies for identification of human risks due to emerging human parasites and strategies to tackle/reduce the identified risks. This Symposium will also provide an insight on cutting edge laboratory parasitological techniques and on guidance/tools to address downward trends of the teaching of medical and veterinary parasitology globally.
As such, we would accept communications on the following topics/sub-topics related to emerging/ zoonotic parasites:
