Epidemiology of Trichinella in the Arctic and subarctic: A review

Abstract

The finding of Trichinella in the Arctic was foreseen because captive polar bears and arctic foxes had been found infected during the first decades of the 20th century. Human trichinellosis outbreaks were reported to have taken place in 1944 in Franz Josef Archipelago and 1947 in Greenland, and previous outbreaks in Greenland also appeared to have been trichinellosis. Now, it is known that Trichinella parasites thrive in the Arctic and subarctic and pose a risk for public health. We collated the available information, which show that infection prevalences are high in many animal host species, and that outbreaks of human trichinellosis have been described also recently. The species diversity of Trichinella in the Arctic and subarctic is relatively high, and the circulation is in non-domestic cycles with transmission by predation, scavenging and cannibalism. There are also sporadic reports on the synanthropic species Trichinella spiralis in arctic wild mammals with little known or assumed contact to potential synanthropic cycles. In this paper, we summarize the knowledge on epidemiology of Trichinella parasites in the circumpolar Arctic and subarctic regions, and discuss the challenges and solutions for their control.