Trichinellosis among the human population in Vojvodina

Abstract

The origin of the parasites of Trichinella species goes back to very ancient times–as far as the Paleozoic era, and the organism has been present in the territory of today’s Europe for millions of years. The first epidemic in the region of Serbia was reported in Zemun in 1923. Trichinellosis is the most important parasitic food borne disease in our country. In Vojvodina alone, 58 epidemic outbreaks were reported in the period 2015-2019 with 853 affected patients. The average incidence was 3.5 diseased individuals per 100 000 population. High morbidity and hospitalization rates and the occurrence of lethal outcomes qualifies trichinellosis as belonging to the category of relatively severe human diseases in Serbia. However, there are promising data indicating that implementation of relevant control measures and improvement of the awareness of the population have led to a statistically significant decrease in the number of diseased persons with trichinellosis in both Vojvodina and the entire country.