Parasitology of the twenty-first century: are we moving in the right direction?

For thousands of years, parasitic infections have represented a constant challenge to human health. Despite constant progress in science and medicine, the challenge has remained mostly unchanged over the years, partly due to the vast complexity of the host-parasite-environment relationships. Over the last century, our approaches to these challenges have evolved through considerable advances in science and technology, offering new and better solutions. Unfortunately, in the twenty-first century, this diagnostic evolution was suddenly confronted with a dramatic change of biological relationships, never witnessed in history before the uncontrolled expansion of the human population, globalization and hyperconnectivity technology have exerted a massive socioeconomic impact on individuals, communities and the environment, sending a ripple effect throughout the world of parasites. Urbanization, pollution and the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources have caused shifts in biomass and the fragmentation of habitats, leading to the movement of parasites into new hosts and territories. At the same time, changes in human population structure and distributions due to armed conflict and poverty created massive migration of entire nations and communities, resulting in the redistribution of parasitic diseases. To make the situation worse, the population of many receiving countries of North America and Europe is ageing, leading to a critical shortage of a specialized workforce essential to deal with the new diagnostic challenges. Unfortunately, this vicious circle is not yet apparent to all. The highly specialized field of parasitology is at a particular risk for such major crises in the near future. Heightened awareness of such risks is an essential step to start discussions and planning to mitigate these very real health threats.