Talk:Helminthiasis

Heading
I removed the tag as the disambiguations are fixed, I hope it's OK.Chhandama (talk) 11:20, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Prevalence
I just reviewed this stub article. One topic to include is how many people in the world are infected with helminths, how many are being treated, and where are these people? Emble64 (talk) 17:11, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Chhandama (talk) 06:05, 26 March 2013 (UTC) I hope the information I have added answer the suggestion.

Is deworming prevention or treatment?
do we regard de-worming as a prevention or as a treatment? At the moment it appears under both headings. I guess it depends if the drugs are given as a pre-emptive measure, i.e. without having diagnosed the child as having worms or not? EvM-Susana (talk) 20:23, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Hum good point. It is sort of both. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 21:24, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Helminthiasis
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Helminthiasis's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "WHO2014": From Schistosomiasis:  From Soil-transmitted helminthiasis:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 13:48, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
 * @ AnomieBOT. They are different, the former is for specific infection of schistosomes, whereas the latter is for the broad disease by all helminths. Chhandama (talk) 04:24, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Prevalence / epidemiology debate: how many are infected?
I am currently discussing in the "off" via e-mail this figure of how many people are infected with helminths. The figure by WHO of 1 billion people is most likely too low. I have already added another reference which gives 2 billion people. If anyone has further good references to add which give other estimates or if someone has explanations to add why this figure is hard to pin down, please add it to the article. EvM-Susana (talk) 09:22, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Debate about the name: helminthosis or helminthiasis?
I am also discussin in the "off" the issue about the name. There have been publications that have pushed for a consistent name of helminthosis (in fact to use the -osis for infections of all the different worm kinds). James pointed out that: ICD 10 uses helminthiasis and this is usually how we determine our naming http://apps.who.int/classifications/icd10/browse/2010/en#/B65-B83 However, in this case, it might be worth mentioning that this has not been unchallenged and that some authors have strongly pushed for the -osis variant, see: doi:10.1016/j.vetpar.2006.02.019 (although it comes from the veterinary field, so perhaps not so relevant?). EvM-Susana (talk) 09:22, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Very good point. Standardized Nomenclature of Animal Parasitic Diseases (SNOAPAD) in 1988 recommended the suffix -osis for all PDs, except for traditionally established name like malaria, nagana, Chagas disease (which I think is the first controversy, because it breaks the very first attempt to bring uniformity). It is by no means a consensus, and I don't think there will ever be. In terms of etymology, they are both valid, and if we still have names like malaria, where is uniformity in the first place. Chhandama (talk) 05:46, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Replace the current first photo?
Obviously, the first photo of the article is rather important. I don't like that we use the same photo as the lead photo for the page on helminths and on helminthiasis. As the helminthiasis page is talking about the disease caused by various helminths, how about moving up the new collage photo from Mexico to the top? Transmission seems to be via the eggs for the majority of work types. So the eggs are really important. Or take the schematic on how the infection occurs. I think that would be better than the photo of this one particular worm. EvM-Susana (talk) 23:22, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
 * You are absolutely right. Chhandama (talk) 05:47, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Explanation about type and disease
Thank you, Chhandama, I am happy to see that someone else is also taking a deeper interest in this article! :-) (can you also take a look at the related one on helminths? I am unsure where the information about enumerating helminth eggs and analysing wastewater and sludge samples best goes (it is standard practice in sanitation), I am yet to add more information about it.

I looked at all your changes, and I think they are good and helpful. Only this one you had deleted but I think it is important because it helps to understand the bullet point list. I would like to add it back in:

"Helminth types Helminthiasis is caused by any of a number of helminths as shown below. In this list the name of the disease, i.e. the infection, is mentioned first (ending with -sis) and the name of the responsible organism is added in brackets afterwards:" EvM-Susana (talk) 08:09, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

History section
You (Chhandama) have moved the section that was currently under history to the page on deworming. I can partly see the logic in that. On the other hand, shouldn't we also have a history section on the disease here? I.e. when was it first described, who were pioneers in finding out the life cycles of these worms, who has advocated for eradicating it, how did things develop in developing countries, which major international initiatives are there now and since when? It might just be a matter of linking up with other relevant articles, e.g. there is a Wikipedia article on Guinea worm and the Carter initiatives that should be linked to. From that point of view I am not sure if it's helpful to have the history description split over 2 pages (this one and the one on deworming) as it's more than just deworming. At least they should be clearly interlinked (and we are having discussions on the deworming talk page if we should have two separate deworming pages, one for humans and one for animals as the issues are so different). EvM-Susana (talk) 08:09, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes a history section such as you mention is a good idea. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 23:49, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

New section to explain which helminthiasis are a neglected tropical disease
I have added a section to clearly show which of the helminthiasis belong to the neglected tropical diseases. I think this is helpful as it's so easy to get lost with all the worms. Can anyone think of a good reason why not all helminthiasis are classified as NTDs?? I think the list should be modified, e.g. perhaps Guinea worm infection could be removed from the NTDs as there are so few infections nowadays (which is great). EvM-Susana (talk) 23:57, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Explanation about the -asis and -osis to denote the infection
You Chhandama have removed this part: A naming convention exists whereby the ending "-asis" (or in veterinary science more commonly the ending "-osis") at the end of the name of the worm is added to signify the infection with that particular worm, e.g. Ascaris is the name of a particular helminth, and Ascariasis is the name of the infectious disease caused by this helminth.

I would like to put that back in. The explanation on the "-asis" has helped me a lot when I first started to read about this. And for the "-osis" I can add a reference to this. I just haven't had time to add the reference but it is this paper that a colleague pointed out to me: Veterinary Parasitology, 29 (1988) 299-326 299 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam -- Printed in The Netherlands Standardized Nomenclature of Animal Parasitic Diseases (SNOAPAD)* EvM-Susana (talk) 11:28, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

And also this paper, it talks about the same issue: Veterinary Parasitology 138 (2006) 169–178 Review '''Nomenclature for parasitic diseases: cohabitation with inconsistency for how long and why? ''' Tibor Kassai * Department of Parasitology and Zoology, Szent Istva´n University, Faculty of Veterinary Science, 1078 Budapest, Istva´n u. 2, Hungary Received 6 June 2005; accepted 21 February 2006

Rather than deleting it, let's add the right references for this statement. EvM-Susana (talk) 11:31, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Not necessary. I am quite aware of SNOPAD. Firstly, I said unsourced because of your statement in veterinary science more commonly the ending "-osis" is not true, and source would be very hard to find. E.g. the world's authority on vet parasitology WAAVP (to which I happen to be a member), which endorses SNOPAD (see here) still uses -iasis in all formal documents. Meaning that it is not universally, or disproportionately applied - as you implied. The alternate spelling is already given in the opening sentence. Besides, if you going by the book of SNOPAD, it should be ascariosis. Chhandama (talk) 03:19, 22 December 2014 (UTC)


 * So then I think this kind of information is sufficiently important that it should be explained to the readers, with the right references or based on your experience. Perhaps you can propose the correct wording then to make it clear? I have colleagues in Mexico, who provided a lot of the images and information that I have included in recent weeks about the worm pages and they told me that e.g. when they submitted a paper to the journal Water Research, they were told to change it from -asis (or even -iasis) to -osis (-iosis?). On the Wikipedia pages, we have basically used now -asis throughough. I think it is important to explain to people the key arguments of the discussion of -asis and -osis. As those papers that I listed above are both from vetenary science it was my understanding that in vetenary science the -osis is used more than the -asis. On the WHO and CDC pages, it is -iasis throughout. - So I think it is actually more than just an "alternative spelling" and it doesn't just apply to helminthiasis but to all of the individual worm infection pages as well. EvM-Susana (talk) 11:48, 22 December 2014 (UTC)


 * As I have heard no further objections, I plan to put the information about the "-osis" back in (with providing a reference), OK? EvM-Susana (talk) 10:49, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Use of photos
I have added additional photos of surgical procedures and of X-rays which I sourced from South Africa. I hope that people are OK with these photos. My question is which photos to also put in the articles on soil transmitted helminthiasis and ascariasis. I guess I could repeat the ascaris photos because ascaris is an example of a STH and of helminthiasis in general. But might not be so great to see the same photo on several pages. They are coming from this set: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gtzecosan/sets/72157648282032913/ If anyone has more photos (under the right licence, CC-BY) please bring them to my attention. Thanks. EvM-Susana (talk) 22:22, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Information about surgery as treatment and intestinal blockages as a serious and not uncommon symptom
While added the surgical photos from South Africa (see just above), I realised that we had nothing about blocked intestines and related things in the section on "symptoms" and nothing about surgical procedures in the section on "treatment". I have added that now, based on e-mails I had with Larry Hadley from South Africa (who also provided the photos) and on one of his publications. I am not a medical person though, so I would really appreciate someone going over this and providing additional or better sources. Here is the one paper that I quoted: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=%28Hadley%20GP%5bAuthor%5d%29%20AND%20Surgical%20management%20of%20worm%20volvulus%5bTitle I know it is not a review paper but at least it's in Pubmed if this counts. And if anyone has better papers for this sort of information, please provide them. Here is another paper of his but it's from 1988 and from the abstract I waasn't sure if something can be taken from this paper for this article? http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bjs.1800750130/abstract EvM-Susana (talk) 22:26, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
 * We have this one  Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 01:55, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Good - could you add it in at the appropriate spot in the article and perhaps take some of its main content, too? I think this intestinal obstruction is rather important, otherwise these worms might sound pretty "harmless". Question is if we should put the same content on the ascariasis page - which might double up our work. So maybe the approach should be to make the helminthiasis page really good and detailed but to make sure when people land on the ascariasis page they quickly realise that more can be found on the helminthiasis page (note that the ascariasis page currently gets more views than the helminthiasis page!). I guess the term ascaris is better known than helminths. So we could add the Further|Helminthiasis thing at key places in the article. EvM-Susana
 * We already have "Ascariasis is classified as a neglected tropical disease as it is a type of soil-transmitted helminthiasis. These diseases are in turn part of a group of diseases called helminthiasis." in the lead. Further is not used like that.
 * I will add some on intestinal obstructions :-)
 * Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:05, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I think just linking to helminthiasis once in the lead is not enough (people don't read a long article from start to finish; they jump straight into the section on treatment, for example). If we decide that the helminthiasis page is the most important one and that it will have most of the details regarding symptoms and treatment options for example, then if the information on the page of ascariasis and STH is kept briefer we need to point people to where to find more information (i.e. point them to the helmminthiasis page). I have added that now in a couple of places. I think that's helpful. The alternative would be to repeat and copy the same information on the 3 pages: helminthiasis, STH and ascariasis (as so much is in common: ascariasis an important STH, being an important helminthiasis) - but this requires more work and repeated updates on 3 pages as new publications come to light... I think it's good for people to know which is the "main" and which is the "sub" article. EvM-Susana (talk) 22:12, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Eventually we could have an article called "treatment of helminthiasis" and that could be linked in the treatment section. And signs and symptoms of helminthiasis.
 * All the articles are already linked a few times. They are all in the category helminthiasis. Helminthiasis is in the lead. And they are all listed in the nav boxes. People who are interested will find it. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 22:21, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Recent edit about deworming
Thanks, CrystelHadley for taking an interest in this page and the part about de-worming. I am just wondering about this addition that you made: "On the other hand, a study by economists Edward Miguel and Michael Kremer in Kenya found that, when the missing externality benefits of mass deworming were taken into account, the program substantially improved health and school participation.[26]" I think it should be in the section above, not in the section on "criticism on outcomes"? Secondly, it is not necessary to name the author names. Thirdly isn't this "only" primary research? Fourthly, a lay person would have no idea what "the missing externality benefits" is - so if we think this is important it needs to be explained better. - I find the issues around de-worming very interesting, so I think it would be a good idea to expand on this further and to get a good, balanced piece of information about pros and cons of deworming here.EvM-Susana (talk) 08:26, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi EvM-Susana, thanks for the advice and sorry I'm new at this. (1) The study was motivated in response to previous studies that had found no significant effects, and so I thought it might make sense to put it in the same section as "criticism on outcomes." (2) I'll take out the author names, thanks. (3) I'm not sure what this means? Do you have a link to more information about the concerns about citing primary research? (4) I'll add a bit more explaining externality (and/or maybe link to Externality). I didn't want to hog too much room explaining the study, but I see how it's not adding a lot if nobody understands what it's saying. CrystelHadley (talk) 13:25, 26 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi, CrystelHadley. I was also new not long ago, so I know what it feels like... I have re-arranged the section a bit now; I think that sub-heading "criticism on outcomes" was not good, as it did not really contain criticism as such but just examples of lack of evidence. If we had such a sub-heading then we would also need one called "evidence of positive outcomes" or similar. So instead, I have taken that one out. About 1) I have moved it now in the earlier section. About 2) that's better. About 3) Yes, just scrol up to this talk page and you will see links to recommended sources. In the medical field, they are quite strict with this as primary research doesn't really prove anything... However, I think exceptions can be made; also I realised you didn't actually add this reference, it was already in the article (oh, wait, perhaps you added it in two locations?). We might have to check with one of the other editors if it's OK to cite this. I find that in the sanitation field, there is often an absence of other good sources, but I am not sure about this one now. About (4) I still don't find it clear. Please explain a bit further what this means, perhaps by giving an example? - "when the missing externality benefits of reduced rates of transmission were taken into account" And do you know of other studies that would support this? This might be key for explaining why the other Cochrane reviews didn't find the positive impacts? - By the way 5), there is also a page on deworming which we could theoretically beef up, although so far the decision was to put the main emphasis on this page and leave the deworming page more for the animal side of things. (?). EvM-Susana (talk) 19:27, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Have adjusted some to clarify. Yes we do typically prefer review articles as discussed at WP:MEDRS over primary sources. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 04:14, 27 May 2015 (UTC)


 * The paper I cited had already been cited under the "Symptoms: School Attendance" section, but definitely fair to acknowledge that it's not a review paper. The topic seems to be still under some debate, pending this review. Maybe for now we make clear that there are differing opinions, but give weight to the Cochrane review, since the other side of the debate is based on only one study. What about moving "Symptoms: School Attendance," since school attendance is not strictly a symptom, and the section doesn't balance the full evidence? CrystelHadley (talk) 20:36, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree with you and have made the edit now. Let's keep a close eye on that review that you mentioned and update the article accordingly when we know more. I will also try to find out more from the colleagues in the Philippines about their Fit for Schools program. EvM-Susana (talk) 07:27, 2 June 2015 (UTC)


 * The Cochrane review is out, I have removed the Kenyan study, which reanalysis papers released today claim has biased results. I think the combination of the Cochrane review and the reanalysis papers are stronger than the original claims about school attendance etc. JMWt (talk) 09:30, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to create spin-off page on "mass deworming of children" or "mass deworming"
The issue of mass deworming of children is a big one, see the recent edits (see above) or see also here on the SuSanA discussion forum. I am proposing to keep the information short here and rather created a spin-off article with more detail. I thought about putting it on the existing page of deworming but I think that one is focussed mainly on animals and it doesn't really make sense to discuss animal and children deworming on the same page, as the surrounding issues are totally different (the only common element is how the drug works to kill the worms). On such a new page we could also highlight information about re-infection and about a possible vaccination (there is a page on that as well). EvM-Susana (talk) 13:16, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Any chance we can have the new page shown at the top of the deworming page like This article is about animal deworming. For mass deworming of children see mass deworming  (or whatever the new page is called)? JMWt (talk) 15:51, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I just went ahead and began a mass deworming stub page. JMWt (talk) 16:21, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, good, so that means we should move the bulk of the information on mass deworming across from the helminthiasis page to the new page on "mass deworming", and just leave a couple of sentences about this issue on the helminthiasis page. EvM-Susana (talk) 10:01, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Need more information about diagnostic techniques
If someone has time, can you please expand the information on diagnostic techniques (and/or the related sub-pages, e.g. eggs per gram and Kato technique? You can take a look at this information on the SuSanA discussion forum as a starting point. EvM-Susana (talk) 09:48, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Same pattern of deleting "unsourced" content on helminthiasis article
I have put this on the talk page of the editor who edits with the IP number: 70.124.133.228 - but as he/she seems to have a habit of deleting comments from his/her talk page, I am repeating it here and will put it also on the talk page of schistosomiasis: "Hi, you're probably going to delete this comment of mine from your talk page, like you've been deleting other comments in recent days, too. I see that after your rather unhelpful work on the schistosomiasis article you've now turned to helminthiasis with exactly the same pattern of editing: You add the "citation needed" to any sentence that doesn't have a citation, then a few weeks later you come back and delete that section. This is totally unhelpful. I have not once seen you actually look to find the citation yourself. In many cases, the source could probably be repeated from the next sentence! Whilst I had little to do with writing the schistosomiasis article, I put quite a bit of effort into the helminthiasis article, and I find it very unhelpful that you're now thinking you can delete anything that is in your view not sourced. This is unhelpful.EvMsmile (talk) 23:43, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Can you please get in the habit of discussing planned deletions of text on the talk page first and give people who really CARE about an article a reasonable time frame (at least several months!) to react to your request for finding a reference before deleting it. Or even better, help us with finding the right sources, rather than deleting text without putting any argument forward that would explain why a piece of text is "doubtful"! EvMsmile (talk) 23:43, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Deaths/Survival and Cochrane
The IP editor has twice added information suggesting that Cochrane looked at "survival". In fact Cochrane did not and they only looked at deaths in passing with the weakest possible evidence, apparently based on a single paper.


 * "Death


 * Ndibazza 2012 provided data on mortality. Awasthi 2013 (Cluster) also monitored mortality although these data are not yet in the public domain so we are unable to report them.

It seems to me that this is so weak that it shouldn't even be mentioned, as it is effectively just repeating a result from a single study. And I don't see that "survival" is necessarily the same as "death" rates anyway. JMWt (talk) 08:04, 10 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree with you and - once again - it should have been discussed on the talk page before adding/reverting things more than once.EvMsmile (talk) 11:07, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

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Biology
Helminthic diseases 2405:204:A794:7AAB:0:0:1A16:38A0 (talk) 08:38, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Dracunculus is transmitted through a copepod not flies.
Dracunculus is transmitted through a copepod, however, in the text says "Finally, Wuchereria, Onchocerca, and Dracunculus are transmitted by mosquitoes and flies". I understand that cepopods are known as water flies, but they are not technically flies. JG_Urrego (talk) 15:49, 4 October 2022 (UTC)