New insights into infant strongyloidiasis in Papua New Guinea
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The island of New Guinea is known to harbour a unique human infecting species of Strongyloides : Strongyloides fuelleborni subsp. kellyi . Stool DNA extracts (n=164) from 19 PNG infants, collected over 13 months, were analysed using Strongyloides real-time PCRs and underwent metabarcoding of cox1 , 18S rRNA HVR-I and HVR-IV loci. Eight infants were infected with Strongyloides ; seven identified as Strongyloides fuelleborni fuelleborni and one as S. f. kellyi . Phylogenetic and haplotyping analyses indicated that S. f. fuelleborni in PNG belongs to the Indochina sub-clade of S. f. fuelleborni, and S. f. kellyi does not represent a subspecies of S. fuelleborni .
We provide the first molecular evidence of S. f. fuelleborni infection in humans in the Pacific. We also support that S. f. kellyi is a separate and distinct species of human infecting helminth. Renewed clinical and epidemiological investigations into infant strongyloidiasis in New Guinea using species-discriminatory molecular tools are indicated.
