Co-infection of COVID-19 and parasitic diseases: A systematic review.
Parasite Epidemiol Control 2023;
21:e00299. [PMID:
37091061 PMCID:
PMC10062795 DOI:
10.1016/j.parepi.2023.e00299]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/03/2022] [Revised: 02/16/2023] [Accepted: 03/28/2023] [Indexed: 04/03/2023] Open
Abstract
Co-infection of COVID-19 with other diseases increases the challenges related to its treatment management. COVID-19 co-infection with parasites is studied with low frequency. Here, we systematically reviewed the cases of parasitic disease co-infection with COVID-19. All articles on COVID-19 co-infected with parasites (protozoa, helminths, and ectoparasites), were screened through defined inclusion/exclusion criteria.
Of 2190 records, 35 studies remained for data extraction. The majority of studies were about COVID-19 co-infected with malaria, followed by strongyloidiasis, amoebiasis, chagas, filariasis, giardiasis, leishmaniasis, lophomoniasis, myiasis, and toxoplasmosis. No or low manifestation differences were reported between the co-infected cases and naïve COVID-19 or naïve parasitic disease.
Although there was a relatively low number of reports on parasitic diseases-COVID-19 co-infection, COVID-19 and some parasitic diseases have overlapping symptoms and also COVID-19 conditions and treatment regimens may cause some parasites re-emergence, relapse, or re-activation. Therefore, more attention should be paid to the on-time diagnosis of COVID-19 and the co-infected parasites.
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