It is a prescribed disease (B4) under the relevant legislation.§[1] Ancylostomiasis is caused when hookworms, present in large numbers, produce an iron deficiency anemia by sucking blood from the host's intestinal walls.

Once larvae have broken through the skin, they enter the bloodstream and are carried to the lungs (however, unlike ascarids, hookworms do not usually cause pneumonia).

[3] However, Ancylostoma ceylanicum, a canid and felid hookworm, is able to establish patent intestinal infection in humans and is thus a zoonotic cause of ancylostomiasis.

Treatment of heavily infected individuals is one way to reduce the source of contamination (one study has estimated that 60% of the total worm burden resides in less than 10% of the population).

Other obvious methods are to improve access to sanitation, e.g. toilets, but also convincing people to maintaining them in a clean, functional state, thereby making them conducive to use.

[citation needed] The drug of choice for the treatment of hookworm disease is mebendazole which is effective against both species, and in addition, will remove the intestinal worm Ascaris also, if present.

Iron is an important constituent of a multitude of enzyme systems involved in energy metabolism, DNA synthesis and drug detoxification.

He found thousands of adult ancylostomes in the small bowel of a 20-year old soldier who was suffering from severe diarrhoea and anaemia (labelled at the time as Egyptian chlorosis).

[13][10] Medical investigations let to the understanding that it was caused by Ancylostoma duodenale (favoured by high temperatures and humidity) and to "major advances in parasitology, by way of research into the aetiology, epidemiology and treatment of ancylostomiasis".