Review of “Echinococcus and Echinococcosis, Part A.” edited by R. C. Andrew Thompson, Alan J. Lymbery and Peter Deplazes

Book details Thompson RCA, Deplazes P, Lymbery AJ, Editors. Echinococcus and Echinococcosis, Part A. Volume 95, Advances in Parasitology 95. Academic Press; 2017. 525 pages, ISBN 978-0-12-8114711 (hardcover); 9780128114728 (eBook).

People involved in the control of echinococcosis are expected to do any surveillance based on molecular identification of the pathogens. In Africa, it is easy to expect that human cases with E. felidis should not be rare. In Asia, mainly in the Tibetan plateau, China, E. shiquicus may also be confirmed from humans.
The definitive hosts, either domesticated or wild carnivores, have been contaminating our living environment with eggs. Accidental human infection is mainly caused by human invasion into the wild animal territories, but also by wild animals such as red foxes which also often invade our living environment in big cities in developed countries.
This book with six chapters is an updated overview on the highly pathogenic parasites in the genus Echinococcus. The authors are well known experts in each topic. Chapter 1 by Eckert and Thompson is on "Historical aspects of Echinococcosis" and is highly informative. It mainly focuses on the pioneer researchers and their scientific contribution with their memorial photos. It is interesting to learn what the first senior author, Eckert, has done for the establishment of WHO informal working group on echinococcosis etc. over 60 years' lifework. If it had included the two new species, E. shiquicus and E. felidis, or the most recent debate on E. canadensis, it would be perfect. Chapters 2 and 3 by Thompson and Lymbery, respectively, from the same group are on "Biology and Systematics of Echinococcus" and "Phylogenetic Pattern, Evolutionary Processes and Species Delimitation in the Genus Echinococcus", respectively. Although they recently stressed that E. canadensis should be divided into three species, i.e. E. intermedius, E. borealis and E. canadensis (see Lymbery et al. [1]), Chapter 2 keeps E. intermedius and E. canadensis, and Chapter 3 keeps E. canadensis (Yanagida et al. [2]). Chapter 4 by Brehm and Koziol on "Echinococcus -Host Interactions at Cellular and Molecular Levels" is a highlight of this book and highly informative. It gives an updated overview on the biochemistry and molecular biology of the parasites and host-parasite interactions.
From Chapters 1-4, I still have no clear idea on the mechanism as to how the laminated layer emerges in daughter cysts in E. granulosus (s.l.) through endogenous budding, and the reverse topology of laminated layer in mother vs daughter cyst is resolved. But the laminated layer might be differentiated from undifferentiated stem cells in the germinal layer in the mother cyst.
Chapter 5 by Romig et al. on "Ecology and Life Cycle Patterns of Echinococcus Species" is informative with excellent figures showing the life-cycle of each species.
Chapter 6 by Deplazes et al. on "Global Distribution of Alveolar and Cystic Echinococcosis" is focused on the distribution of E. multilocularis and E. granulosus (s.l.) and highly informative in general. It clearly indicates the historical evidence for the distribution of different genotypes of E. multilocularis and different species of E. granulosus (s.l.) on a global scale. It is easy to understand that Echinococcus parasites have been traveling the world. It is the time for field and laboratory parasitologists to join together using molecular tools.
It is easy to believe that the living environment of humans is becoming more complicated than we expected before reading this book. Is it possible for us to eradicate echinococcosis? Or should we be patient to live together with those pathogens, but challenge for sustainable education and practice for prevention of echinococcosis? If an innovative metacestocidal drug is developed, its benefit would be enormous! I dedicate this book review to the late Professor the Lord EJL Soulsby who passed away on 12 May 2017.

Competing interests
The author declares that he has no competing interests.

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