Authors

Discussion

Recently reported presence of Asian-genotype Echinococcus multilocularis tapeworms in Eastern European red foxes prompted the question of metacestode descent in the human population. In this study, a Maximum Likelihood tree based on partial sequences of E. multilocularis mitochondrial genes cox1, cob and nad2 coupled with hierarchical clustering analysis of EmsB microsatellite profiles revealed Asian ancestry in two samples from alveolar echinococcosis patients living in Warmia-Masuria, north-eastern Poland, implying that the increasing red fox synanthropy facilitates infiltration of genotypes to date associated only with the sylvatic cycle into the human population.