High occurrence of Cryptosporidium ubiquitum and Giardia duodenalis genotype E in sheep from Brazil

Abstract

In this paper we report the occurrence of zoonotic species of Cryptosporidium (C. ubiquitum and C. parvum subtype IIaA15G2R1) and the host-specific Giardia duodenalis genotype E in a sheep farm from Brazil. Fecal specimens were collected from 100 animals and screened for the presence of G. duodenalis and Cryptosporidium spp. by enzyme immunoassay (EIA) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and sequence analysis of selected samples was used to confirm the species and to characterize the isolates. Of 100 specimens, 34 were positive for Giardia (34%) and 25 were positive for Cryptosporidium (25%). The prevalence of Giardia and Cryptosporidium was higher in lambs than in ewes. Co-infection was observed in 14% of animals. All G. duodenalis isolates belonged to genotype E. The genetic characterization performed in 22 Cryptosporidium-positive samples revealed the presence of zoonotic C. ubiquitum and C. parvum in 76% (19/25) and 12% (3/25) of infected animals, respectively. The presence of zoonotic Cryptosporidium subtypes in lambs was of epidemiological and public health relevance.

Dominance of Giardia duodenalis assemblage A and Enterocytozoon bieneusi genotype BEB6 in sheep in Inner Mongolia, China

“…The low occurrence of G. duodenalis in this study can be partially attributed to the relatively low number of young animals examined in this study, the use of no parasite concentration procedures prior to DNA extraction, and the use of tpi PCR instead of 16S rRNA PCR as the screening tool. In studies conducted elsewhere, infection rates of 31% to 89% have been reported (Gomez-Munoz et al, 2012;Paz e Silva et al, 2014;Sweeny et al, 2011a). Similar to results of some previous studies (Sweeny et al, 2011a), lambs in the present study had a significantly higher infection rate of G. duodenalis than ewes (8.6% versus 0.9%).…”

“…This is rather different from observations of previous studies in sheep, which suggested that assemblage E is the dominant genotype in sheep in most areas (Fava et al, 2013;Gomez-Munoz et al, 2012;Jafari et al, 2014;Paz e Silva et al, 2014;Robertson et al, 2010;Santin et al, 2007;Sweeny et al, 2011b;Tzanidakis et al, 2014;Yang et al, 2014). This could have been caused by the fact that sheep in this study shared pastures with other animals from other farms, resulting in inter-species transmission of pathogens.…”

Prevalence and genetic characterization of Cryptosporidium species and Giardia duodenalis in lambs in Oromia Special Zone, Central Ethiopia

“…Cryptosporidium species and G. duodenalis infections are relatively common and have been reported worldwide in sheep [6, 8, 13, 30, 31]. Although some reports suggest that sheep are probably not an important reservoirs for zoonotic Cryptosporidium species and G. duodenalis [6, 8], molecular characterization of the two parasites indicated that they can harbor species or genotypes/assemblages which are potentially infectious to humans [7, 8, 11–13, 30, 31].…”

Occurrence of Cryptosporidium and Helminthosis in Santa Ines Sheep under Dry and Rainy Season

“…The infection in humans and various animal species constitutes a public health issue, that is why, detection of this parasite in animal feces is important, due to the capacity of ruminants being a source of infection for humans (Ryan, Fayer, & Xiao, 2014;Paz e Silva et al, 2014). Due to the growing significance of cryptosporidiosis as a zoonotic parasitic infection, the present work had the objective to access the occurrence of coccidian of the genus Cryptosporidium and helminthes in fecal samples from sheep.…”