Neural angiostrongyliasis (NA) results from the migration of larvae of the rat lungworm, Angiostrongylus cantonensis, within the nervous tissue of accidental hosts.

It is the caus­ative agent of eosinophilic meningoencephalitis, a zoonotic infection of humans. Discovered originally in China, it spread to South Asia, the Pacific islands and Australia (Spratt 2015).

It is likely that the distribution of A. canton­ensis will continue to expand both within Australia and globally, having now also been found in the south-eastern United States of America and parts of Central and South America (Aghazadeh et al. 2015a; Spratt 2015). Australian marsupials and flying-foxes appear to be highly susceptible to NA, possibly because of the relatively recent arrival of the parasite in Australia with European settlement and lack of evolved resistance, despite exposure to the endemic A. mackerrasae (Bhaibulaya 1968; Ladds 2009). Australian native wildlife are important sentinels as indicators of the emergence and spread of A. cantonensis (Ma et al. 2013).

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