Increasing immigration to Canada coupled with the increasing number of Canadians travelling domestically and abroad is expected to significantly impact the burden of illness due to enteropathogens, including Giardia, in Canada . When estimating this burden of illness, international travel cases are considered to be distinct from domestically acquired cases due to differences in control measures in other countries. However, there is no distinction made between domestic travel-related cases and endemic cases. As such, there has been no published literature where domestic travel-related cases (DTRCs) have been analyzed separately from endemic cases (ECs). This represents a considerable knowledge gap, as risk factors for contracting giardiasis via domestic travel may be different from those associated with endemic giardiasis or international travel. In our study, we subsequently demonstrated that grouping DTRCs and ECs together for analysis is likely not appropriate due to differences in exposures to risk factors for giardiasis among these groups.
Objective
The objective of our study was to determine how demographic and exposure factors related to giardiasis vary between travel (both international and domestic) and endemic cases, for residents of the Region of Waterloo, Ontario.