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The word helminth is derived from the Greek helmins (“parasitic worm”). Helminthic worms are highly prevalent and, depending on the species, may exist as free-living organisms or as parasites of plant or animal hosts. The parasitic helminths have co-evolved with specific mammalian and other host species. Accordingly, most helminthic infections are restricted to nonhuman hosts, and only rarely do these zoonotic helminths accidentally cause human infections.
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Helminthic parasites of humans belong to two phyla: Nemathelminthes, which includes nematodes (roundworms), and Platyhelminthes, which includes cestodes (tapeworms) and trematodes (flukes). Helminthic parasites of humans reside within the human body and hence are the cause of true infections. In contrast, parasites of other genera that reside only on mucocutaneous surfaces of humans (e.g., the parasites causing myiasis and scabies) are considered to represent infestations rather than infections.
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Helminthic parasites differ substantially from protozoan parasites in several respects. First, protozoan parasites are unicellular organisms, whereas helminthic parasites are multicellular worms that possess differentiated organ systems. Second, helminthic parasites have complex life cycles that require sequential stages of development outside the human host. Thus, most helminths do not complete their replication within the human host; rather, they develop to a certain stage within the mammalian host and, as part of their obligatory life cycle, must mature further outside that host. During the “extra-human” stages of their life cycle, helminths exist either as free-living organisms or as parasites within another host species and thereafter mature into new developmental stages capable of infecting humans. Thus, with only two exceptions (Strongyloides stercoralis and Capillaria philippinensis, which are capable of internal human reinfections), increases in the number of adult helminths (i.e., the “worm burden”) within the human host require repeated exogenous reinfections. In the case of protozoan parasites, a brief, even singular exposure (e.g., a single mosquito bite transmitting malaria) may lead rapidly to intense parasite loads and overwhelming infections; in contrast, for all but the two helminths noted above, increases in worm burden require multiple and usually ongoing exposures to infectious forms, such as ingestion of eggs of intestinal helminths or waterborne exposures to infectious cercariae of Schistosoma mansoni. This requirement is germane both to the consideration of helminthic infections in individuals and to ongoing global efforts to interrupt and/or minimize the acquisition of helminthic infections by humans.
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Third, helminthic infections have a predilection toward stimulation of host immune responses that elicit eosinophilia within human tissues and blood. The many protozoan infections characteristically do not elicit eosinophilia in infected humans, with only three exceptions (two intestinal protozoan parasites, Cystoisospora belli and Dientamoeba fragilis, and tissue-borne Sarcocystis species). The magnitude of helminth-elicited eosinophilia tends to correlate with the extent of tissue invasion by larvae or adult helminths. For example, in several helminthic infections, including acute schistosomiasis (Katayama syndrome), paragonimiasis, and hookworm and Ascaris infections, eosinophilia is most pronounced during the early phases of infection, when migrations of ...