Parasitic disease continues to be a major health problem worldwide in humans and domestic animals.
Applying biotechnology has led to progress in prevention and control in many areas, particularly in regard to diagnosis. Parasites, like most organisms, carry repetitive sequences in their genomes. Often, repetitive sequences are intergenic and noncoding, and are thus far more subject to evolution and change, increasing the likelihood that they will be genus or even species specific. Since detection of these sequences is not dependent upon gene expression, which may vary over time, repetitive sequence-based assays allow detection of the parasite at any life stage. Attempts to develop anti-parasite vaccines have met with multiple failures.