Filariasis in sub-Saharan immigrants attended in a health area of southern Spain: clinical and epidemiological findings.

Abstract

Filariasis is still an endemic disease in several countries worldwide. Patients with mansonellosis result in only relatively mild symptoms, but these infections could produce many visits to health care providers. In Spain, this infection is imported due to the increase of immigrant population reaching our country during last years. The health area of the Hospital of Poniente has a rate of immigrants around to 20%, with a high percentage coming from sub-Saharan countries, being Mansonella perstans the main filarial infection in the majority of cases. In the protocol for the immigrants, it has been included the diagnosis of filarial infections in order to treat them. This manuscript describes epidemiological and clinical aspects of patients with this kind of infection.

• Authors: Fernando Cobo, Ma Teresa Cabezas-Fernández, Joaquín Salas-Coronas, Ma Isabel Cabeza-Barrera, José Vázquez-Villegas, Manuel J Soriano-Pérez
• Journal: Journal of immigrant and minority health (J Immigr Minor Health) Vol. 17 Issue 1 Pg. 306-9 (Feb 2015) ISSN: 1557-1920 [Electronic] United States
• PMID: 23881533 (Publication Type: Journal Article)

Topics

• Adult
• Africa South of the Sahara (ethnology)
• Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay
• Female
• Filariasis (epidemiology, ethnology)
• Humans
• Male
• Polymerase Chain Reaction
• Spain (epidemiology)