FIVM Seminar Series presents: Echinocococcus multilocularis – still a great unknown?

Up until 2010, Echinococcus multilocularis (Em), the tapeworm responsible for more than 18,000 cases of potentially fatal human Alveolar Echinococcosis (AE) each year worldwide, was not deemed as a serious zoonosis in North America. The reason was simple: except for the outbreak in S. Lawrence Island (AK) in the late ‘50s, there were just a couple of cases in North America, so the risk for public health was negligible – or so it was deemed by most.

The parasite’s cycle entails definitive hosts (mostly wild and domestic canids, as coyotes, foxes and dogs) preying upon infectious rodents (mostly small mammals). Since 2010, a study on gastrointestinal parasites in urban coyotes in Alberta (CA) highlighted Em presence in urban parks in Calgary and Edmonton, raising the attention on potential human infections. In 2013, the first case of human AE was reported in Edmonton, followed by 21 new cases (to date), with an incidence similar to that in highly endemic areas in Europe.

Recent studies suggest this unprecedented series of cases might be due to the emergence of a new European-like strain of the parasite, now most prevalent in Alberta’s wild hosts, probably introduced in North America quite recently. On Friday, March 18, Dr. Kinga Kowalewska-Grochowska and Dr. Alessandro Massolo will discuss how this might have changed the risk for animals and people and poses a challenge to veterinarians and physicians as well as public health.

Dr. Kinga Kowalewska-Grochowska is an Associate Clinical Professor at the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology at University of Alberta, and is also cross appointed to Department of Lab Medicine and Pathology, and works as a Medical Microbiologist and Parasitologist at the Provincial Laboratory of Public Health in Edmonton. She received her MD degree in Warsaw, Poland and then specialized in medical microbiology in London, UK and then again in Canada. She is an Associate of the Royal College of Pathologists, United Kingdom and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Canada.

Dr. Kowalewska-Grochowska completed additional parasitological training at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London, UK. She was a Directory of Medical Microbiology Residency Training Program, Director of Student Affairs and Awards, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta, and still teaches medical and science students.

Kinga is a mother of two very independent daughters – one of whom is a first year DVM student at UCVM – and two lovely dogs! For fun, she does nature walks, makes short movies and watches a lot of hockey!

Dr. Alessandro Massolo’s education focused on the ecology of medium-large mammals. He took his undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences at the University of Pisa (IT), where he also completed his Master of Science in Animal Biology and Behaviour in 1994. In 2000, he then took his PhD at the University of Siena (IT) in Animal Biology (Zoology), and then he spent 4 years as a postdoc at the University of Florence (IT). In 2008, he joined the Department of Ecosystem and Public Health at UCVM as faculty member in Wildlife Health Ecology. While at UCalgary he founded the Wildlife Ecology and Spatial Epidemiology Lab (WEASEL). He also co-founded the interdisciplinary Wildlife Disease Ecology Group (iWEG) at the University of Calgary for the promotion of interdisciplinary research and teaching. In 2016, he was the Chair of the Wildlife Health Ecology research group at UCVM.

Since January 2017, Dr. Massolo has been an Associate Professor at the University of Pisa, Italy, where he joined the Ethology Unit at the Department of Biology, but has maintained a connection with UCVM as an adjunct Professor in Wildlife Health Ecology.

Dr. Massolo’s research has spanned from ecology and behavioural ecology, wildlife management and conservation, to physiology, applied mathematics, information technologies, and allergology. His current research focuses on the ecology and dynamics of complex systems, focusing on multi-scale spatial and temporal heterogeneity of ecological processes and patterns in prey-predator and host-parasite interactions, as well as of epidemiological processes.

He has authored and co-authored more than 130 indexed publications and 8 book chapters.