Detection of parasites in food

The importance of foodborne parasitic zoonoses remains high in many regions of the world. Although control efforts have been exerted for quite some ti me, overall progress has not been satisfactory, even in many well developed countries. An important drawback in control programmes for parasites such as Trichinella, Toxoplasma and Taenia has been the absence of rapid, accura te and sensitive diagnostic tests for these meatborne parasites. However, t he rapid advances in the molecular biology of these organisms has yielded c oncomitant gains in precision of detection. This review highlights these ad vances and their impact or potential application to the control of foodborn e parasites.