PREVALENCE OF GASTROINTESTINAL PARASITES IN HORSES IN LUXOR, EGYPT

Assiut University web-site: www.aun.edu.eg

PREVALENCE OF GASTROINTESTINAL PARASITES IN HORSES IN LUXOR, EGYPT

LAMIAA M. ABD EL-RADY ¹; AHMED K. DYAB ²; SALWA MAHMOUD ABD-ELRAHMAN ³ AND SARA A. MOHAMED ³

¹ Private Veterinary Clinic, Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Egypt

² Department of Medical Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Egypt

³ Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Assiut University

Received: 5 September 2021;     Accepted: 20 September 2021

INTRODUCTION

Gastrointestinal parasites infect several species of equines, including protozoa,    helminthes     and    gastric

Corresponding author: Ahmed K. Dyab

E-mail address: ahmed2015@aun.edu.eg

Present address: Department of Medical Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Egypt

maggots of some species of flies; have been associated with ill thrift, reduced growth rates with colic and poor performance (Tatz et al., 2012). Also, larval cyathostominosis, which is, characterized by diarrhoea, hypoproteinaemia and rapid emaciation, is a critical disease in young grazing horses (Love et al., 1999). The outcome of periodic use of anthelmintic to monitor gastrointestinal parasites is the development of anthelmintic resistance and reduced efficacy of available anthelmintic classes (Kaplan et al., 2004; Smith et al., 2015). Several reports in Americas and Europe discuss the resistance of strongyle to Benzimidazole and tetrahydropyrimidines (Peregrine et al., 2014).

It has been reported that macrocyclic lactones (ML) treatment is followed by Shortened egg reappearance period (ERP) (Daniels et al., 2016 and Rossano et al., 2010) and that is an early indicator of strongyle resistance species. Parascaris equorum resistance to macrocyclic lactones also reported in several countries (Peregrine et al., 2014). Such reports focus on the need for controlling the anthelmintic drug usage, to stop the anthelmintic resistance species (Nielsen et al., 2018). (FEC) must be done before treatment to reduce anthelmintic resistance species, and limiting the anthelmintic usage and selective pressure on parasitic infected one (Kaplan et al., 2010). However, the prevalence of infection and anthelmintic resistance in equid population in continuous increasing, because the practice of (FEC) testing couldn't be performed in many working equid populations.

The working horses in Egypt are managed separately with no access to pasture grazing (Salem et al., 2017), therefore, it was hypothesized that the strongyle infection prevalence in this working population of horse could be less based on reports from other countries (Ramey et al., 2020; Nielsen et al., 2018). Furthermore, the information about the doramectin efficacy in equines is limited (Matthee, 2003), despite its common use between equid population (Salem et al., 2017).

The objectives of the current study were to quantify the gastrointestinal parasites burden in working and riding horses in Luxor, Egypt, In order to highlight the factors associated with the severity of gastrointestinal (GI) parasites and perfect treatment and prevention of it.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A total of 100 horse fecal samples were collected from different ages, sexes and stables, from animal care hospital in Luxor, Egypt. The samples were collected during the period from March- 2020 to February -2021. It was collected directly from the rectum, in clean plastic containers (100ml size) with 10% formalin and mixed well and tightly closed then labeled with all information for the animal and breeder included age, sex, and color and general parameters, then the samples were transported in ice box to the parasitology department at faculty of Veterinary Medicine Assiut University. After that, a portion of stool was examined at field by direct wet mount, sedimentation and flotation techniques to identify the gastrointestinal parasites.

ETHICAL ANIMAL RESEARCH

Ethical approval for the study was granted by Animal Care Hospital and Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Assiut University.

Statistical analysis

The collected data was revised, coded, tabulated, and introduced to a PC using Microsoft Excel. All statistical analysis was done using Stata 14. Data analysis was done for each parameter according to the type of data obtained.

RESULTS

We included 100 Horses from Luxor in this cross-sectional study, demographics data are present in (Table 1) , 63 were males, 28 were females and 9 were Foals. The mean age was 3.3 years. Out of the 100 included horses, there were 16 of them infected, 15 with gastrointestinal parasites (Fig.1), the infected horses presented with different signs as shown in (Fig.2).

Table 1:Baseline characteristics

Fig. (1): Demographic characters of studied cases, A: The infected and non-infected cases B: The sex distribution, C: The distribution of different infection.

Fig. (2): Symptoms of the included horses

The prevalence of parasitic infection of horses in Luxor was 16% [95% CI 9-25] (Table 2), the main infection is GIT infection with 15% the prevalence of each GIT parasite subtype in (Table 3) and (Fig.4). Also, there is a relationship between the GIT infection and the age of the horse as shown in (Table 4).

Table 2: Prevalence of Parasitic infection in Horses.

Table 3: Prevalence of GIT infection in Horses.

Table 4: Relationship between the GIT infection and the age of the horses.

There was high statistically difference between the age of the infected group and non-infected group using independent t-test, Mean difference= 1 year [95% CI 0.24- 1.69], p-value< 0.01.

Fig. (3): Different parasitic infection in examined cases, A: Parascaris equorum ×200, B: Nematode larva×200, C& D: Ciliated protozoan parasite trophozoite (Arrow) × 400, E&F: Strongylus spp. eggs X100.

DISCUSSION

From the previously mentioned results, three types of gastrointestinal parasites were recorded in horses in animal care in luxor governate during the period from march, 2020 till Feberuary, 2021 as follows discussion:

1-The infection rate of Strongyus vulguris in examined horses:

In this study, the occurrence of Strongylus vulguris was reported 9% among 100 examined horse at animal care hospital in Luxor Governorate, from detailed records of examined horse. The occurrence of Strongylus vulguris obtained in this study was lower than those reported by (Shebl et al., 2020) in Egypt, who recorded that, the prevalence of low, medium and high strongyle infection was (88.4%) and (21.14%) in Dhamar Governorate, Yemen (Alshaibani, Aldalali, & Al-shaibani, 2019) and (99%)in Ethiopia (Abdurezak et al., 2015).  

2- The infection rate of Parascaris equorum in examined horses:

In this study, the occurrence of Parascaris equorum was reported 5% among 100 examined horse at animal care hospital in Luxor Governorate, from detailed records of examined horses. This result was in slightly agreement with those reported by (Shebl et al., 2020) (5.1%) in Egypt. While this finding is considered higher than that previously recorded by (Hinney et al., 2011) (3 %) prevalence of Parascaris equorum based on faecal examination in horses of different types in Germany.

On the contrary, the occurrence of Parascaris equorum obtained in this study was lower than those reported by (Othman and Alzuheir, 2019) who recorded that the overall prevalence rate of Parascaris equorum was found to be 15.6% in native horses in West Bank Palestine and (umar et al., 2013) in naigeria who recorded (6.3%) infection rate by parascaris equorum.

3-The infection rate of Balantidium coli in examined horses:

In this study, the occurrence of Balantidium coli was reported 1%.The occurrence of Balantidium coli obtained in this study was lower than those reported by (Attia et al., 2018).

The reason for the low prevalence of parascaris equorum, strongylus and balantidium in indigenous ones in this study might be relatively to good management system and environmental hygiene, applied in breeding system in Egypt. Another reason for the presence of regular good deworming programme applied in luxor governorate.

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