Volume 181, Issues 2–4, 27 September 2011, Pages 335–340
Abstract
Cystic
Echinococcosis (CE) is one of the most widespread parasitic diseases in
Sardinia, the second largest Mediterranean island where almost
3,558,000 milk sheep were raised extensively. The aim of this survey was
to evaluate the level of farmers’ knowledge on CE transmission,
focusing on the role of human to facilitate the persistence of this
zoonosis in Sardinia after 14 years after the last campaign against CE.
The other goal of the survey is to update on presence of Echinococcus granulosus
in its definitive hosts through three ELISA coproantigen tests. An
interview was carried out with 172 farmers. The questionnaire was
designed to include possible factors associated with the transmission of
Echinococcosis: ownership and number of dogs, the use of anthelmintic
drugs against dog cestode, frequency of anthelmintic treatment in dogs,
home slaughtering and offal disposal. Individual faecal samples were
retrieved from 300 dogs, and after a preliminary macroscopic examination
to discover adult worms and/or proglottids, was submitted to
copromicroscopic examination. Coproantigens were then extracted
according to the protocol described by Allan et al. (1992), and subsequently stored at −20 °C until use.
Faecal soluble antigens from E. granulosus
were detected using three different ELISA coproantigen assays: (a) the
commercially produced Chekit Echinotest (Bommeli, Bern, CH) based on
polyclonal antibodies against adult excretory/secretory (E/S) antigens;
(b) a sandwich ELISA that uses rabbit polyclonal antibodies against
adult E/S antigens and biotinylated monoclonal antibody EmA9 produced
against adult Echinococcus multilocularis somatic extract ( Malgor et al., 1997); and (c) a sandwich assay that uses monoclonal antibody EgC3 produced by immunization with adult E. granulosus E/S products ( Casaravilla et al., 2005).
Questionnaire
results reveal that on all farms home-slaughtering was done, and offal
was used as dog meal raw (17%) or after boiling (37%), discarded in the
trash (23%), or buried superficially (15%). Most farmers (69%) declared
to deworm their dogs, but only 10% used cestodicidal drugs. The
coprological survey of 300 farm dogs using sedimentation, flotation and
three different coproantigen (CA) ELISAs resulted in a faecal prevalence
of 8.3% for taeniid eggs, while the CA tests gave prevalences of 3%
(Chekit Echinotest, Bommeli), 6% (EmA9 sandwich ELISA) and 10% (EgC3
sandwich ELISA). Our results show that this is not only an educational
problem, but also an economic one, stressing the need that future
control plans should follow an integrative approach including veterinary
and medical services, farmers, breeders’ associations and the
Government.
Keywords
- Cystic Echinococcosis;
- Dogs;
- ELISA;
- Coproantigens;
- Illegal slaughtering
Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.