**8. Control and prevention**

The interest in *Giardia* infection studies have been raising since its inclusion in the World Health Organization (WHO) in the Neglected Diseases Initiative in 2004 [9, 19]. In the same way, a bibliometric study of scientific production on giardiasis reports 6964 papers between 1971 and 2010 available in PubMed, written in 27 different languages corresponding to original articles (78.5%), reviews (8.6%), case reports (6.8%), and letters to the editors (3.6%) that evidenced a steady growth of literature dedicated to *Giardia* and its infection throughout the 40-year analyzed period [7].

This pathogen has been highlighted for the importance in terms of patient well-being and its effects on quality of life for being a continuing cause of the patient's discomfort and pain. Unfortunately, due to a lack of political will, funding, interest from the scientific community, or the combination of all of these factors, giardiasis is not a health priority; that is why, it is important to take in mind that this infection is prevented by a scrupulous personal hygiene, proper disposal of sewage, removal or killing of cysts from water supplies, and preventing contamination of food and water [2, 20].

Actually, the global burden of chronic giardiasis is not known, and the difficulties in diagnostic tools, the lack of definition, and difficulties to quantify the impact of an infection that causes an acute or chronic one, principally symptomatic illness, contribute to the necessity to realize studies that estimate the problems in terms of cost, day lost for disability, and quality of life [9, 18].

Despite that, important contributions have been made regarding the spectrum of illness attributable to giardiasis. It is illustrated in the protective effect of *Giardia* against other types of diarrhea what could be due to the anti-inflammatory activity of *Giardia*. Nevertheless, further investigations on the pathogenic mechanisms are needed that could lead to potential interventions preventing the severe illness [2, 11].
