The economic evaluation of Cystic echinococcosis control strategies focused on zoonotic hosts: A scoping review

Cystic echinococcosis (CE) is a zoonotic neglected tropical disease which predominantly affects poor pastoral communities globally. The parasite cycles between farm dogs and livestock, and is associated with livestock farming and feeding of infected offal to dogs. Although no noticeable clinical signs are seen in livestock, some production losses, such as reduced milk yield and live weight gain may be observed, and offal condemnation at slaughter is common. The disease can also affect people, due to accidental ingestion of parasite eggs on contaminated food and contact with dogs. Human morbidity and mortality occur due to cyst formation in body organs, exerting a substantial health and financial burden to the health sector of affected countries. Control interventions to reduce CE transmission include sheep vaccination and dog deworming. Long-term control programmes are often expensive, and the true costs of such programmes poorly documented. This scoping review aims to examine published literature on the costs of CE control in zoonotic hosts and report detailed costs of individual elements of a control programme, thereby furthering our understanding of the true economic cost of CE control