ABSTRACT
Parasites, in recent years, have come to public view under rather dramatic circumstances related to medical, humanitarian, and political concerns, or a combination of these. The medical buzzword, “immunosuppression,” for example, has been linked to intestinal parasites. As associated with organ transplantation, with chemotherapeutic regimens applied to cancer patients, or with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), immunosuppression is a prelude to disease caused by the internal proliferation of opportunistic enteroparasites such as Cryptosporidium sp. and Strongyloides stercoralis1. Inseparable from medical dilemmas that involve parasites are social and economic problems. These are highlighted by accumulating evidence that intestinal parasites, such as hookworms, Ascaris lumbricoides, S. stercoralis, Trichuris trichiura and Schistosoma sp., exacerbate sequelae of malnutrition2. The impact of the nutritional drain caused by these organisms and by analogous parasites of livestock3 on food supplies and the general economy of developing nations is staggering2. These problems are becoming more evident in economically developed nations as contacts with the Third World increase.
