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Cestode Zoonoses: Echinococcosis and Cysticercosis: an Emergent and Global Problem Immunology of Infectious Diseases

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Cestode Zoonoses: Echinococcosis and Cysticercosis: an Emergent and Global Problem Immunology of Infectious Diseases BOOK REVIEWS Cestode Zoonoses: being strengthened in western Europe, the word, presenting its contents in a given that E. multilocularis infection clear, structured manner. Instead of Echinococcosis and rates in foxes have increased in recent encylopedic coverage of every infec- Cysticercosis: An years. The book contains other valu- tious disease agent known, a set of Emergent and able updates on diagnostics, immunol- paradigmatic infections were selected ogy and vaccines, imaging and clinical on the basis of the depth of available Global Problem management, geographic information knowledge. The book is divided into systems and ecology, veterinary medi- eight sections, each of which Philip Craig and cine, and community-based control addresses a particular aspect of the Zbigniew Pawlowski, editors programs. Readers with an interest in host-infectious agent interaction, helminthology will find this book describing it in separate chapters for Vol. 341 NATO Science Series, most useful. bacteria, fungi, parasitic eukaryotes, IOS Press, Amsterdam and viruses. So instead of discussing 410 pages, hardcover Frank O. Richards, Jr. all aspects of viral diseases, the reader ISBN: 1-58603-220-8 The Carter Center, Atlanta, Georgia, USA learns about the innate immune Price: US $100 response to the various pathogens, chapter by chapter, in the respective This book is a collection of short Address for correspondence: Frank O. Richards, section. Emphasis is thereby placed on articles written by the participants of a Jr., The Carter Center, 453 Freedom Parkway, the immune system’s “point of view” research workshop held in Poznan, Atlanta, GA 30307, USA; fax: 770-420-5100; e-mail: [email protected] about an infectious process, rather Poland, in September 2000. The work- than on the microbe’s. shop, supported by NATO Scientific After an introduction to the vari- Affairs, focused on the three major ous classes of infectious disease larval cestode diseases of humans: Immunology of agents, the book describes the immune Taenia solium neurocysticercosis, Infectious Diseases responses directed against the differ- Echinococcus granulosus cystic ent types of infections, proceeding hydatidosis, and E. multilocularis from the innate to the acquired (adap- By Stefan H.E. Kaufmann, alveolar hydatidosis. The format and tive). Discussion of the pathology of Alan Sher, and Rafi Ahmed depth of the articles are variable, but infections not eradicated by the readers familiar with these parasites immune system early on and the cun- American Society for will find the book to be a convenient ning strategies of the infectious Microbiology Press collection of new information on the microbes to evade immune attacks is Washington, D.C. subject. A shortcoming is that the followed by sections on immunoge- 520 pages book’s preface and summary are each netics and exploration of the immune ISBN: 1-55581-214-7 limited to a single page. system’s interventions against two Price: US $115.95 Perhaps most interesting for read- high-incidence infections, tuberculosis ers of the Emerging Infectious Dis- and AIDS. Whether an infectious disease eases Journal are the reviews of Although the infections discussed agent is an “old acquaintance” or a epidemiologic data related to the in this book are not emerging ones in new, emerging threat, the immune sys- emergence or reemergence of these the strictest sense, the example of tem’s battle against it is usually the three diseases. In sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS shows just how fast an infectious first line of defense it encounters. for example, neurocysticercosis has disease that was emerging, seemingly With vaccines and effective treatments emerged as being more widely distrib- restricted to a subset of the population often unavailable, the immune sys- uted than previously assumed and is a only two decades ago, can grow into a tem’s efforts to eradicate infectious major cause of epilepsy. Surgery for pandemic in a highly mobile, dense agents or infected cells are frequently pediatric cystic echinococcosis in population at the end of the 20th cen- the only means to combat them. Kyrgystan increased threefold during tury. Even tuberculosis, the “wasting Understanding the immune system— the period 1993–1998 (reaching 6 disease” dreaded by our grandfathers’ as well as the infectious agent’s tactics cases/100,000), suggesting new trans- generation, which scientists believed to to undermine it—is of vital impor- mission probably related to worsen- be under control, can be regarded as an tance to the researcher and clinician. ing economic conditions after the emerging disease: Mycobacterium This textbook attempts to provide just collapse of the former Soviet Union. tuberculosis has stepped into the lime- this information. Surveillance for human cases of alve- light again in the wake of HIV, which Immunology of Infectious Dis- olar echinococcosis (which can have a renders a growing number of people eases is a textbook in the best sense of mortality rate of 90% if untreated) is immunocompromised. 1362 Emerging Infectious Diseases • Vol. 8, No. 11, November 2002.
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