Changing prevalence of human microsporidiosis

The frequency of publications about microsporidiosis, indexed in PubMed, was tracked on a yearly basis from 1980 to 2010. Search terms (individual and paired) of various degrees of restrictiveness were used (ranging from least restrictive: ‘microsporidia’, to most restrictive: ‘microsporidiosis/HIV’, ‘microsporidiosis/AIDS’). The annual number of publications indexed under each search term(s) increased from the early 1980s until the mid 1990s. In subsequent years, there was a decline in numbers of publications retrievable via search terms emphasising human disease. This decline mirrors the declining prevalence of microsporidian infections in the HIV-infected population since the mid to late 1990s.