Freshwater fish-borne parasitic zoonoses in Italy

Fish-borne parasitic zoonoses are widespread all over the world. In 2010 EFSA emphasized the need to define the risks for the consumers through epidemiological studies on fish-borne zoonoses, with special reference to those linked to the freshwater environment such as human opisthorchiasis by the metacercariae of liver flukes Opisthorchiidae and human diphyllobothriasis by the plerocercoids of the cestodes Diphyllobothrium spp. In order to identify the fish species and the lacustrine environments considered at risk for transmission of D. latum and Opisthorchis felineus to humans, a parasitological survey has been carried out in Northern Italy.