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Echinococcus granulosus (‘pig strain’, G6/7) in Southwestern Lithuania
Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica volume 52, Article number: S14 (2010)
Material and methods
During 2005-2006, post slaughter examination and morphological identification of cysts from pigs from small family farms (n=612) and industrial farms (n=73) was performed. Dog fecal samples (n=240) were collected in 12 villages and microscopically examined by egg flotation/sieving (F/Si) [3] and modified McMaster methods [4]). For the genetic identification of E. granulosus to species/strain level, PCR was performed with DNA from typical hydatid cysts from pigs (n=2), morphologically unidentifiable lesions from pigs (n=3), nonfertile cysts from cattle (n=3) and taeniid eggs from dog faecal samples (n=34) [5]. Risk factors for cystic echinococcosis were evaluated by a questionnaire.
Results
CE was prevalent in 13.2% (81/612) of the pigs reared in small family farms and 4.1% of those reared in industrial farms. Molecular analysis of isolated taeniid eggs revealed in 10.8% of the dogs investigated Taenia spp., in 3.8% E. granulosu s (G 6/7) and in 0.8% E. multilocularis. In addition, three samples from livers of human and from a cow were confirmed as E. granulosus larval stage by PCR. Sequence analysis confirmed the ‘pig strain’ (G 6/7) in all pig, dog, cattle and human isolates investigated. No significant risk factor for infections with E. granulosus or Taenia spp. could be identified.
Conclusion
The ‘pig strain’ of E. granulosus is highly prevalent in the southwestern part of Lithuania, and transmission is more likely in small family farms indicating a high exposure to cestode eggs in rural areas. Therefore control programs should be initiated with special reference to small family farms.
References
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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Šarkūnas, M., Bružinskaitė, R., Marcinkutė, A. et al. Echinococcus granulosus (‘pig strain’, G6/7) in Southwestern Lithuania. Acta Vet Scand 52 (Suppl 1), S14 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1186/1751-0147-52-S1-S14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1751-0147-52-S1-S14