The prevalence of gastrointestinal nematodes in 65 horses at Las Criollas, La Belén Ranch, from the National Enterprise for Wildlife Protection, in the province of Camagüey, Cuba, was determined. Parascaris equorumand Oxyu-ris equi´s spreading ways were identified by floating helminth-ovoscopic analysis. The rest of the species were clas-sified according to the morphological characteristics of previously cultured larvae. The formula referred by Vaklas Kouba to achieve temporary prevalence of parasitic nematodes was used in the study. The type with the highest prevalence found was Cyathostomas; the least was Parascaris equoromand Strongylus vulgaris. Other nematodes found were Strongylus edentatus, Gyalocephalus capitatus, Poteriostomumsp. Oesophagodontus robustus, Triodontophorussp, Trichostrongylus axeiand Strongyloide westeri

Batista Camejo, Bexi

Guerra Llorens, Yunaisy

Mencho Ponce, Juan Diego

Padilla Villavicencio, Lázaro

Salas Romero, Josmel

English

Portal de Revistas - Universidad de Camagüey

Rev. prod. anim., 26 (3): 2014 I S S N  2 2 2 4 - 7 9 2 0  Prevalence of Gastrointestinal Nematodes at Las Criollas Equine Unit, La Belén Ranch Josmel Salas Romero, Bexi Batista Camejo, Lázaro Padilla Villavicencio, Juan Diego Mencho Ponce and Yunaisy Guerra Llorens Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Camagüey, Cuba josmel.salas@reduc.edu.cu ABSTRACT The prevalence of gastrointestinal nematodes in 65 horses at Las Criollas, La Belén Ranch, from the National En-terprise for Wildlife Protection, in the province of Camagüey, Cuba, was determined. Parascaris equorum and Oxyu-ris equi´s spreading ways were identified by floating helminth-ovoscopic analysis. The rest of the species were clas-sified according to the morphological characteristics of previously cultured larvae. The formula referred by Vaklas Kouba to achieve temporary prevalence of parasitic nematodes was used in the study. The type with the highest pre-valence found was Cyathostomas; the least was Parascaris equorom and Strongylus vulgaris. Other nematodes found were Strongylus edentatus, Gyalocephalus capitatus, Poteriostomum sp. Oesophagodontus robustus, Triodon-tophorus sp, Trichostrongylus axei and Strongyloide westeri. Key Words: prevalence, nematodes, horses  INTRODUCTION Horse population in Cuba declined in the late 1990 and early 2000. Today, there are 610 569 animals, of which 60 812 are found in Camagüey (Peinado, Torres and Campos, 2011). One of the most commonly found pathologies in horses is gastrointestinal parasitism (Nielsen, 2012 and Von Samson-Himmelstjerna, 2012); namely the Strongyloidae family, made of large strongyles, with three clinically important species (Osterman, 2005); as well as small strongyles, representing more than fifty-one species. Paras-caris equorum (Ascaride) is another species with major clinical significance for horses (Osterman et al., 2007) around the world. In recent years, an increase of Cyathostominae infestations has been reported, probably due to antihelminthic resistance, and the appearance of the larval cyathostomiasis syndrome. Additional-ly, the disease has remained masked due to severe effects of large strongyles, especially Strongylus vulgaris. This disease has decreased in the last few years in countries like the US, thanks to chemical parasite control programs (Lyons et al., 2008). As Matthews et al. (2004) and Von Samson-Himmelstjern (2008) said, large and small stron-gyles are commonly found in the large intestine of horses. They are composed of at least 19 types and 64 species (Lichtenfels et al., 2008). Few reports have been made in Cuba about this host species. Arece et al. (2002) dealt with the ef-ficacy of a nematocide in several animal species, including horses; Salas et al. (2009) studied the prevalence of gastrointestinal helminthiasis on a ranch in the province of Camagüey. However, the general behavior of parasitic diseases, taxonomic grouping, and taxonomic classification of types and species is unknown in horses. As a conse-quence, several antiparasitic schemes are current-ly being applied in the absence of a national con-trol program.  The aim of this study was to determine the preva-lence of gastrointestinal nematodes in horses on Las criollas Farm, at La Belén Ranch. MATERIALS AND METHODS A group of 65 horses from Las Criollas Farm, at La Belén Ranch (National Enterprise for wild-life Protection, Camagüey, Cuba) were sampled in March.  Between 30 and 40 g of feces were collected di-rectly from the each animal´s rectum, and were kept in separate tagged plastic bags, then carried in refrigerated containers to the Parasitology La-boratory of the University of Camagüey. The me-thodology established by Demedio et al. (1984) was used to process the samples. The spreading modes of Parascaris equorum and Oxyuris equi were identified using the float-ing helmithic-ovoscopic analysis described by Prevalence of Gastrointestinal Nematodes at Las Criollas Equine Unit, La Belén Ranch Rev. prod. anim., 26 (3): 2014 Rodríguez et al. (1987). Strongylate nematode larval culture was made according to Corticelli and Lai (1963). Later, the larvae were collected folowing the Niec (1968) procedure, cited by Cor-ticelli and Lai (1963), and they were identified, according to Russell (1948) methodology, cited by Arundel (1985). The temporary prevalence of parasitic types was made by SPSS 15.0 (2006), based on Kouba´s (1987) methodology. The results were graphi-cated using Microsoft Excel (2003). RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The prevalence of Strongylus vulgaris was 4.6 %, and null for Strongylus equinus. Strongylus edentatus showed a higher prevalence value (24.6 %) (See Table). As stated by Matthews et al. (2004), most research coincides in that popula-tions of large strongylus have been gradually re-placed by small strongylus populations. That trend is attributed, to the greater capacity of the latter to develop antihelminthic resistance, espe-cially, to benzimidazole (Matthews et al., 2004).  Poynter (1969) found 70 % prevalence of with S. vulgaris infestation. English (1979) investi-gated infestation of large strongylus in horses, during necropsy, with results of 93 % for S. vul-garis; 70 % for S. equinus; and 18 % of S. edenta-tus. Lyons et al. (1981) reported 43 % prevalence of S. vulgaris, but made no reference to the oth-ers. Dunsmore and Jue Sue (1985) identified S. vulgaris and S. edentatus in 22.5 % autopsied horses, similar to S. edentatus values in this study; the previous authors made no allusion to S. equi-nus. Mfitilodze and Hutchinson (1990) also re-ported 22 % prevalence for S. equinus and S. edentatus; it was 28 % for S. vulgaris. Cardona et al. (2005) investigated the preva-lence of large strongylus during the infestating phase (L3), which resulted in 38 % of S. vulgaris and 38.9 % of S. equinus. In that study, no S. edentatus larvae were found. The animals sampled in this research were treated with Labiozol for four months before re-search started. The active principle of the medica-tion is albendazole, which is prescribed for paren-tal application in ruminants. It was administered in doses of 3.75 mg/kg live weight, a procedure that may be related to low prevalence detected during large strongylus screening, with the excep-tion of S. edentatus. Survival of erratic larvae may occur depending on the dose used, nematode prepatence, and the time elapsed since the last antiparasitic treatment. According to Pérez (2006), low doses of Benzmi-dazoles (5-10 mg/kg of weight for Albendazole) can kill between 90 and 100 % of the adult forms of large and small Strongylus. However, higher doses are required (25-50 mg/kg) to eliminate mi-grating larvae.  High prevalence values were observed in small strongylus, as the case of Cyathostomas found in 98.5 % of the animals tested; Gyalocephalus capi-tatus, in 52.3 % of the animals; Poteriostomun sp, in 44.6 %; Oesophagodontus robustus, in 23.1 %; and Triodontophorun sp, in 23.1 %. A high per-cent of animals is usually infested by small stron-gylus, mainly in the Cyasthostominae subfamily, which is demonstrated by prevalences reported by Collobert-Laugier et al. (2002), with 94 %; 41 % and 19 % for Cyathostomas, Gyalocephalus capi-tatus and Poteriostomun sp., respectively. Accor-dingly, the authors have stated that horses that turned out to be negative for Cyasthostomas, had received antiparasitic treatment with Ivermectine for a month. Mfitilodze and Hutchinson (1990) reported 85 % prevalence of Cyathostomas; 24 % of Poteriostomun imperidentum; and 30 % for Triodontophorus serratus. Moreover, Traversa et al. (2007) stated that in Italy the prevalence of animals infested by Cya-thostoma is 100 %, or near. Apparently, high pre-valence of small strongylus owes to a wide varie-ty of species within the Cyathostominae sub-family (Matthews et al., 2004), which altogether, lead to a high percent of affected animals.  Small strongylus have features that made them different form large strongylus, which favors high percents of animals infested by the former group; particularly, the capacity of being under hypobiot-ic states until favorable conditions are produced, as occurs after the application of antparasitic treatments that kill adult nematodes. These larvae emerge and colonize the intestinal tract, spreading their eggs in the area (Monahan, 2000). Besides, they have biological cycles whose prepatence pe-riods are shorter than for the large strongylus. Trichostrongylus axei had 21.5 % prevalence, similar to findings by Cardona et al. (2005), who claim 21.3 % for this species; much higher than reports by Hoglund et al. (1997), with 1.3 %. The animals investigated in this paper were expected J. Salas, Bexi Batista, L. Padilla, J. D. Mencho and Yunaisy Guerra Rev. prod. anim., 26 (3): 2014 to have lower prevalence values for this nema-tode, considering that the grazing areas used by horses are not shared with bovines, so cross-infection is not likely to occur. Prevalence of Strongyloide westeri (26.2 %) and Parascaris equorom (4.6 %) was observed. Lyons et al. (2006) and Lyons and Tolliver (2004), when studying helminth prevalence in colts, found the following results: Strongyloide westeri 2 % and 1.5 %; and Parascaris equorom 39 % and 22.4 %, respectively. Antiparasitic treatment schemes have no repercussion on S. westeri prevalence be-cause its prevalence period is short, which favors continuous reinfestation of anmimals by this ne-matode. However, the prevalence of P. equorum is considerably reduced with antihelminthic treatments.  For Oxyuris equi, prevalence was 7.7 %, lower than observations by Cardona et al. (2005), who reported 17.6 %. CONCLUSIONS The prevalence values detected are similar to the ones reported in other horse herds around the world. REFERENCES ARECE, J.; ROJAS, F.; GONZÁLEZ, E. y CÁCERES, O. (2002). Eficacia de Labiomec en el parasitismo en ovinos, terneros y equinos en condiciones de pro-ducción. Revista de Pastos y Forrajes, (3), 12-13. ARUNDEL, J. H. (1985). Parasitic Diseases of the Hor-se. Veterinary Review, (28), 7-8. CARDONA, E.; CHOPERENA, M.; QUIJANO, J. y LÓPEZ, G. (2005). Caracterización de nemátodos gastroin-testinales de equinos que llegan a la central ganade-ra de Medellín. Parasitología. Revista Ciencias Pe-cuarias, (4), 384-385. COLLOBERT-LAUGIER, C.; HOSTE, H.; KEVIN, C. y DORCHIES, P. (2002). 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Occurrence of Anthel-mintic Resistant Equine Cyathostome Populations in Central and Southern Italy. Preventive Veteri-nary Medicine, (82), 314-320. VON SAMSON-HIMMELSTJERN, G. (2008). Anthelmin-tic Resistance in Equine Parasites. Potential Clini-cal Relevance and Implications for Control. An In-ternational Workshop Meeting for Developing Guidelines for the Diagnosis of Drug Resistance in Equine Parasites, Proceeding International Equine Parasite Drug Resistance Workshop on Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen. Veteri-nary Parasitol., (137), 86-88. VON SAMSON-HIMMELSTJERNA, G. (2012). Anthelmin-tic Resistance in Equine Parasites-Detection, Poten-tial Clinical Relevance and Implications for Con-trol. Vet. Parasitol., (185), 2-8.Received: 25-6-2014 Accepted: 3-7-2014   Table. Prevalence of different nematodes diagnosed Nematodes Animals evaluated Positive animals Total Prevalence (%) Strongylus vulgaris 65 3 4.6 Strongylus edentatus 16 24.6 Triodontophorun sp 15 23.1 Cyathostomins 64 98.5 Gyalocephalus capitatus 34 52.3 Poteriostomun sp, 29 44.6 Oesophagodontus robustus 15 23.1 Trichostrongylus axei 14 21.5 Strongyloide westeri 17 26.2 Parascaris equorom 4 4.6 Oxyuris equi 5 7.7       

Prevalence of Gastrointestinal Nematodes at Las Criollas Equine Unit, La Belén Ranch.

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Prevalence of Gastrointestinal Nematodes at Las Criollas Equine Unit, La Belén Ranch.

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