Trichinella britovi in the jackal Canis aureus from south-west Iran

Abstract

Trichinellosis is an important helminthic food-borne zoonosis, which is caused by nematodes of the genus Trichinella. Although, Trichinella spp. has been detected frequently in Iranian wildlife, this parasitic infection is not considered a major public health problem. This is largely because Islamic codes forbid consumption of pork meat in this country. However, knowledge about this zoonotic pathogen is important because human trichinellosis has been documented in countries where most of the population is Muslim. The aims of the present work were to investigate whether Trichinella spp. was still circulating in wildlife of the Khuzestan Province (south-west Iran) about 30 years after the first investigation, to identify the aetiological agent at the species level by molecular analyses, and to review the literature on Trichinella spp. in animals of Iran. During the winter 2009-2010, muscle samples from 32 road-killed animals (14 dogs and 18 jackals, Canis aureus) were collected. Muscle samples were digested and Trichinella sp. larvae were isolated from two jackals. The Trichinella sp. larvae have been identified as Trichinella britovi by molecular analyses. These results confirm that T. britovi is the prevalent species circulating in wild animals of Iran.

Redescription of Onchocerca lupi (Spirurida: Onchocercidae) with histopathological observations

“…Recently, this parasite was reported in a human patient from Turkey who suffered from subscleral nodular lesions [9]. Following this first report, other cases of O. lupi infection have been increasingly diagnosed in human patients from Turkey, Tunisia [10,11], Iran [12], and the USA [7]. Ocular cases of O. lupi in dogs have been reported in Hungary [13], Greece [14], Germany [15], Portugal [16] and the USA [17] and in cats from the USA [18].…”

Epidemiology of taeniosis, cysticercosis and trichinellosis in Iran: A systematic review

“…Mirjalali et al () investigated muscle samples of 18 road‐killed jackals ( Canis aureus ) in Khuzestan Province, south‐west Iran using PCR and found T. britovi larvae in two of the samples, while Rostami et al () isolated T. britovi larvae from 2 (5.7%) of the 35 hunted wild boars in Mazandaran Province, northern Iran, by PCR amplification. In another study, Rostami, Riahi, et al () reported a 3.7% T. britovi infection in 79 wild boars using amplification of CO1 and 5S rRNA gene primers in Mazandaran Province, northern Iran, while Shamsian et al () reported larvae of T. britovi in 1.7% of the stray dogs and 8.3% of the golden jackals studied in Khorasan Razavi Province, north‐eastern Iran.…”

Trichinella infections in animals and humans of Iran and Turkey

“…During the period 2009–2010, Mirjalali et al ( 7 ) investigated muscle samples of 14 stray dogs and 18 golden jackals of the Khuzestan Province, south-west Iran, where T. britovi had been detected 30 years earlier. The circulation of T. britovi was confirmed in two golden jackals [Mirjalali et al ( 7 )]. Punctiform deletions or substitutions in the 5S and ITS2 sequences were detected in these two T. britovi isolates ( 22 ).…”