Abstract
Alveolar echinococcosis (AE) is one of the most serious parasitic zoonosis in Asia. Shiqu County is the most important endemic area of AE in China. Our primary objective is to find out the risk factors for Echinococcus multilocularis infection in domestic dogs in Shiqu County during the summer herding period. A total of 120 fecal samples were collected from 60 ranchers in October 2016. Nested PCR (nPCR) was performed to amplify regions of the mitochondrial12S rRNA gene of E. multilocularis. The results showed that the infection rates of AE in dogs from Qiwu, Yiniu, Changshaganma, Derongma, Mengyi, and Xiazha villages were 5, 5, 10, 20, 10, and 5%, respectively. It should be stressed that the infected dogs will shed eggs through feces and may have a habit of preying on rodents, the intermediate host of the parasite, and become re-infected. This investigation confirmed the presence of E. multilocularis infection in dogs in Shiqu and revealed the risk factors associated with the infection during summer herding.
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Acknowledgments
We thank colleagues (Center for Animal Disease Control and Prevention in Sichuan Province, Chengdu, China) for their kind assistance during the field work. We are grateful to the reviewers for their invaluable comments and Dr. Pengfei Cai (QIMR Berghofer) for his contribution to improving this manuscript.
Funding
This study was supported by the Research and Demonstration of Key Techniques in Prevention and Control of Animal Echinococcosis in Sichuan Province Program (Grant No.2017SZ0053) and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 2018NQN49).
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Electronic supplementary material
Supplementary Fig. 1
Cysts of Echinococcus shiquicus detected in plateau pika in Shiqu. (JPEG 388 kb)
Supplementary Fig. 2
Sequences alignment of the 12S rRNA gene fragment amplified from 11 positive fecal samples. (JPEG 2060 kb)
Supplementary Fig. 3
Praziquantel tablets need to be embedded completely into about 5–8 g yak butter before feeding a dog in Shiqu. (JPEG 5241 kb)
Supplementary Fig.4
Holes of grassland rodent (Eospalax fontanierii). (JPEG 153 kb)
Supplementary Txt. 1
Sequences of 12S rRNA gene fragment amplified from 11 positive fecal samples. (TXT 2 kb)
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Hao, L., Yang, A., Yuan, D. et al. Detection of Echinococcus multilocularis in domestic dogs of Shiqu County in the summer herding. Parasitol Res 117, 1965–1968 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-018-5862-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-018-5862-2