Stray Dog Population in a City of Southern Mexico and Its Impact on the Contamination of Public Areas

Abstract

To assess the risk of zoonotic pathogen transmission as function of stray dog presence and health status, a cross-sectional study was carried out in a large city of southern Mexico that lacks comprehensive strategies for the control of stray canine populations. The photographic capture-recapture method was used to estimate the density of dogs/km2. In the same way, dog feces from 14 public parks of the city were collected to determine the prevalence and intensity of infection with gastrointestinal parasites. The canine population was estimated between 65 and 80 thousand dogs, with a population density of 1,081 dogs/km2, mostly males (71.4%). A high proportion of dogs (72.3%) were found to be in good body condition score (BCS 3). The person:dog ratio was 2.3. The likelihood of being in the BCS 2 category was lower in areas with a higher density of dogs. All feces collected from the parks contained eggs of intestinal parasites, most of them with a medium (42.9%) to high (35.7%) infection intensity, notably Ancylostoma caninum. It was recorded that cases with a low-intensity of GI infection showed polyparasitism (35.7%) associated with A. caninum. There is a large population of stray dogs that roam freely in the streets of Campeche city with access to sources of food, which is reflected by their good BCS, and dogs do not have access to preventive medicine programs (de-worming) and thus contaminate public parks with feces with significant parasitic egg loads of zoonotic importance.