Alveolar echinococcosis in Europe and Poland. Threats to humans.

The increasing number of detected cases of alveolar echinococcosis (AE) in recent years in Central-Eastern Europe strongly support the need of accurate diagnosis of the disease in patients and its differentiation from cystic echinococcosis. Accordingly to the EU notification requirements both parasitoses are reported jointly as echinococcosis, which makes it impossible to assess epidemiological situation of each disease. AE threat to humans is due to the environmental contamination with eggs of the tapeworm Echinococcus multilocularis excreted by infected foxes.