Parasites and immunotherapy: with or against?

Immunotherapy is a sort of therapy in which antibody or antigen administrates to the patient in order to treat or reduce the severity of complications of disease. This kind of treatment practiced in a wide variety of diseases including infectious diseases, autoimmune disorders, cancers and allergy. Successful and unsuccessful immunotherapeutic strategies have been practiced in variety of parasitic infections. On the other hand parasites or parasite antigens have also been considered for immunotherapy against other diseases such as cancer, asthma and multiple sclerosis. In this paper immunotherapy against common parasitic infections, and also immunotherapy of cancer, asthma and multiple sclerosis with parasites or parasite antigens have been reviewe

Food and Environmental Parasitology in Canada: A Network for the Facilitation of Collaborative Research

Parasitic diseases are of considerable public health significance in Canada, particularly in rural and remote areas. Food- and waterborne parasites contribute significantly to the overall number of parasitic infections reported in Canada. While data on the incidence of some of these diseases are available, knowledge of the true burden of infection by the causative agents in Canadians is somewhat limited. A number of centers of expertise in Canada study various aspects of parasitology, but few formal societies or networks of parasitologists currently exist in Canada, and previously none focused specifically on food or environmental transmission. The recently established Food and Environmental Parasitology Network (FEPN) brings together Canadian researchers, regulators and public health officials with an active involvement in issues related to these increasingly important fields. The major objectives of the Network include identifying research gaps, facilitating discussion and collaborative research, developing standardized methods, generating data for risk assessments, policies, and guidelines, and providing expert advice and testing in support of outbreak investigations and surveillance studies. Issues considered by the FEPN include contaminated foods and infected food animals, potable and non-potable water, Northern and Aboriginal issues, zoonotic transmission, and epidemiolog

Selecting Monitoring Variables in the Manual Composting of Municipal Solid Waste Based on Principal Component Analysis

This paper proposes the use of principal component analysis performed on the correlation matrix for identifying the best variables for monitoring the composting of municipal solid wastes. Accordingly, 12 physicochemical and two microbiological parameters have been measured throughout the 7 weeks in which the compositing of 1300 kg of organic wastes obtained from MSW was carried out. All the analyses confirm a correct development of the composting process, and the final values fulfil the requirements of the Colombian legislation. The statistical analysis shows that four variables are sufficient for ensuring a suitable process development and, based on economic criteria and technical simplicity, the selected ones are as follows: respirometry, water retention capacity, ash content and moisture content. © 2018 Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Natur