Emerging and re-emerging parasitic diseases and zoonoses: a global health concern

Emerging infectious diseases are defined as diseases that have been newly recognized or already existed with rapidly increasing incidence and wider expansions in geographical range. Recently, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemics has resulted in tremendously devastating socioeconomic impacts on both humans and animals worldwide. This epidemic situation has raised global health concerns about emerging zoonotic diseases attributable to not only viruses but also bacteria, fungi, as well as parasites. Of interest, parasitic diseases can occur worldwide and have a wide variety of causative pathogens in diverse groups, including protozoa, helminths, and insects. More intriguingly, several human parasites can infect a broad range of wild or synanthropic reservoir animals, thus responsible for parasite maintenance and re-emergence. Also, human interventions have substantially changed the natural environment, increasing the proximity and zoonotic transmission between humans and wildlife. Several cases of parasitic zoonoses, e.g., cryptosporidiosis, leishmaniasis, trypanosomiasis, babesiosis, toxoplasmosis, malaria, neurocysticercosis, trichinosis, toxocariasis, gnathostomiasis, dirofilariasis, hydatidosis, and thelaziasis, have been continuously reported globally over the decades. To date, trends of research in parasitic diseases are being focused particularly on all perspectives of diagnostics, treatment, as well as effective prevention, and control, using multi-omic approaches. However, the integrative knowledge about the pathogenesis mechanism, virulence, and evolution of emerging parasites is still unavailable, making it a great challenge for us to understand comprehensively. Therefore, this special issue would be dedicated to emerging and re-emerging human parasitic diseases concerning zoonotic importance and welcome all researchers who are interested in this topic to contribute to it.