Trichinellosis in Greece: a review

Abstract

Trichinellosis which constitutes a public health problem in many countries seems to be of no importance on both pig industry and public health in Greece, where in spite of a law requiring mandatory use of trichinoscopy during meat inspection, muscle larvae have not been found in slaughtered pigs since 1957 in Thessaloniki and 1967 in Athens. Since its first recovery in 1946 and up to 1952, human trichinellosis has been found or suspected in 22 persons in the area of Athens and Thessaloniki. Moreover, in 1968, T. spiralis larvae were found incidentally in a human with laryngeal tumor and in 1971, living larvae were postmortem recovered in the diaphragm of a 70-year-old man. The average incidence of infection in pigs at that time was 0.02-2.2%. Since then, no other clinical case had been reported up to 1982-1984 when 15 people were found to harbor the parasite and fourteen of them were part of an outbreak which occurred in a small village in Northern Greece. Moreover, 1.07% of the pig serum samples which came from the same area, showed the presence of specific antibodies. Because of the above data, it is generally accepted that in Greece T. spiralis is only rarely spread in man.