Examining human paragonimiasis as a differential diagnosis to tuberculosis in The Gambia.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Paragonimiasis is a foodborne trematode infection of the lungs caused by Paragonimus spp., presenting clinically with similar symptoms to active tuberculosis (TB). Worldwide, an estimated 20.7 million people are infected with paragonimiasis, but relatively little epidemiological data exists for Africa. Given a recently reported case, we sought to establish whether paragonimiasis should be considered as an important differential diagnosis for human TB in The Gambia, West Africa.

Results

We developed a novel PCR-based diagnostic test for Paragonimus species known to be found in West Africa, which we used to examine archived TB negative sputum samples from a cross-sectional study of volunteers with tuberculosis-like symptoms from communities in the Western coastal reg

SUBMITTER: Morter R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5769439 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature