Both cysticercosis and echinococcosis are well known to be zoonotic cestodiases spreading almost all over the world and listed up in emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. My group at Asahikawa Medical College （AMC） has established highly reliable serodiagnosis for differentiation of these cestode zoonoses as intemational collaboration projects. In this review article,up-to-date situation and problems of these cestodiases are summarized and stressed to be due to contamination of environment through the local people's life style and culture. Alveolar echinococcosis （AE） is one of the most serious parasitic diseases not only in Hokkaido,Japan but also in major parts of the northern hemisphere in latitude higher than 40°N. Based on our serodiagnostic analysis of patients,previously serologically suspected or confirned to be AE at the Hokkaido Institute of Public Health （HIPH） ,we found that （i） the two cases from Honshu were due to complete misdiagnosis （one was fascioliasis,the other was cystic echinococcosis） and （ii） 3 of 30 AE suspected cases with no antibody response to Eml8 were not AE but haemangioma （2 cases） and hepatic cysts （1 case） after surgery,（iii） three others were also negative to Eml8 and expected to be not AE,and (iv) one non-AE case with negative serology was AE with antibody response to Eml8. It is therefore stressed that the ongoing serology at HIPH is reasonably reliable for screening but not sufficient for identification of AE under the new Law for control of emerging infectious diseases in Japan.
