Forme di comunicazione in sanità rurale in Sardegna:

l’uso dei filmati nelle campagne di prevenzione per echinococcosi e anchilostomiasi nella seconda metà del Novecento

Abstract

Among the main parasitic diseases which concern dogs and affect humans, are those transmitted by helminths, in particular tapeworms. Transmission is amplified by environmental contamination and non-application of simple hygiene standards. Echinococcosis is endemic in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Mongolia, People’s Chinese Republic, south Asia and south-east Australia, and in all those regions where, like in Sardinia, sheep-farming flourishes. Echinococcosis is now considered to be the most important zoonosis in the Mediterranean Region. Hookworm is a pathology caused by a nematode (roundworm). It was once considered a pathology exclusive to miners, furnace-workers, and field workers. This parasitosis is present mainly in parts of the world where hygienic conditions are scarce and a warm and humid climate favour their spread. A sick person is contagious for other humans, transmitting the eggs of the parasite in the environment with their faeces. While hookworm infection is currently limited to depressed areas of the world and a circumscribed area of the national territory, echinococcosis – while decreasing – is still present in a significant way mostly in Sardinia, despite the prevention campaigns and innumerable resources allocated to it, both human and economic. In this work we shall examine the use of videos produced and disseminated for information and prevention, by ENPI, INAIL and Cagliari University in Sardinia in the second half of the XXth century, in the light of two territorial enquiries carried out by the University of Cagliari and the Zooprophylactic Institute of Sardinia.