| Animal foods are necessary for humans, however, many kinds of meat and aquatic products carry parasitic pathogens. Food-borne parasites are the main pathogens that cause important food-borne parasitic diseases, which are mainly infected by people through eating raw or not thoroughly cooked food containing parasite eggs, cysts or larvae. Compared with bacteria and viruses, parasites have long been the neglected group of pathogens. In recent years, with the improvement of people's living standards, globalization of food supply and diversification of dietary sources and eating habits, especially the pursuit of the taste of game and raw food, food-borne parasitic diseases have become a new“affluenza”. The number of infections among urban residents in our country, especially in economically developed coastal areas, is on the rise. Food safety issues caused by food-borne parasites have become increasingly prominent, continuously presenting new epidemic features. It is becoming one of the urgent factors threatening human’s health and the public health issues that cannot be ignored. Here, the new epidemic characteristics and future trends of the important foodborne parasites (meat-borne, fish-borne, mollusc-borne, shellfish-borne, reptile- and amphibian-borne , plant-borne and water-borne parasites) were reviewed, and the prevention and control strategies of food-borne parasitic diseases were analyzed, aiming to raise people’s awareness of food-borne parasites and to protect public health and food safety. |
