• Main Author: Robert Rausch
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Canada; Arctic; Alaska
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.580.6404; http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic5-3-157.pdf

H YDATID disease, or echinococcosis, is one of the more important helminthic diseases which may be transmitted from lower mammals to man. It is caused by tapeworms of the genus Echinococcus (Rudolphi, 1810), which are cosmopolitan in their distribution. A serious threat to human health exists wherever there is contact between man and infected carnivores. I t is the purpose of this paper to review the status of hydatid disease in the boreal regions of the world. Its importance has long been recognized in Eurasian countries, but only during recent years have investigators added anything significant to the knowledge of hydatid disease in North America. There is need to disseminate up-to-date information among medical workers in Canada and Alaska, where the disease is endemic in northern regions having a large aboriginal population. Therefore, particular emphasis will be placed on the situation in boreal North America. Hydatid disease is defined as the infection of man by the larval stage of Echinococcus granulosus (Batsch, 1786). However, six species of Echinococ-cus are currently considered valid, and all may be capable of infecting man.