Survey on Sarcocystis infection in imported male cattle carcasses slaughtered at Duhok abattoir, Kurdistan region of Iraq

Abstract

Sarcocystis is considered as a common zoonotic coccidian parasite that infects intermediate hosts orally through ingestion of contaminated graze or water with protozoa oocyte. The purpose of study is to demonstrate the incidence of Sarcocystis infection in imported cattle in Duhok abattoir and achieve the gold conventional method for muscular tissue cyst and bradyzoites detection. Muscular tissue samples have been collected from esophagus, heart and diaphragm of 150 cattle. From a total of 1350 inspected samples (diaphragm, esophagus and heart) from three different imported origin have been 94%, 92% and 41.3% samples infected respectively as well as significant differences (p <0.01) in the distribution of Sarcocystis infection among organs included and microscopic method used while no significant been found in terms of the animal origin source. Moreover, acid pepsin digestion method has shown high sensitivity in detection of Sarcocystis infection. The infection with Sarcocystis is common in imported cattle and epidemiological studies must be conducted to evaluate the country endemic with the infection.