Alveolar echinococcosis in the Zoological Garden Basle

Abstract

Alveolar echinococcosis (AE) is a rare, but potentially severe zoonotic disease caused by Echinococcus (E.) multilocularis. Recent findings indicated an increasing importance of AE for non-human primates living in regions endemic for E. multilocularis. The death of five cynomolgus monkeys (Macaca fascicularis) and a lowland gorilla (Gorilla g. gorilla) due to AE raised concern about the incidence of this parasite in the Basle Zoo. Consequently, a project was initiated to investigate the prevalence amongst an affected group of cynomolgus monkeys, as well as in foxes and mice. Three out of 46 monkeys were seropositive for E. multilocularis antigen. In two of these monkeys and in another three animals, which were seronegative, structures compatible with metacestodal cysts were observed using ultrasonography. Seven out of 35 free roaming foxes caught at the zoo were positive for an intestinal E. multilocularis copro-antigen ELISA, four of them shed taeniid eggs simultaneously. No lesions compatible with AE were present in 50 necropsied mice from the zoo area. These results indicate that the fox population is a potential source to introduce E. multilocularis and may thus represent a risk for the zoo animals.

The geographical distribution and prevalence of Echinococcus multilocularis in animals in the European Union and adjacent countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Potential IHs of E. multilocularis screened in this study included the muskrat [51, 113, 121, 136, 231–241], arvicolids [24, 30, 32, 39, 51, 79, 93, 95, 101, 121, 141, 187, 189–191, 207, 209, 223, 224, 242–257], murids [51, 79, 95, 101, 168, 169, 224, 229, 242, 246, 250, 251, 253, 256], nutria [231, 233], swine [32, 73, 220, 258] and insectivores [24, 79, 101, 251] (Table 3). For the majority of countries, the distribution of the prevalence of E. multilocularis in muskrats and arvicolids matched that (although the prevalence was lower) in red foxes and was similar to the pooled prevalence of E. multilocularis in other sylvatic DHs (Table 2).…”

“…Only one study on E. multilocularis infection in Mus musculus in France is known to exist [95]. In general, murids have not frequently been found positive for E. multilocularis [24, 79, 101, 168, 169, 224, 229, 242, 246, 250, 251, 253]. However, the number of studies ( n  = 14) and the number of murids examined remains small ( n  = 2,610).…”

Echinococcosis

“…Due to its prevalently wild cycle, there is no special veterinary or economic impact from the infection of the intermediate hosts. However, symptoms close to those observed in humans are often recognized in a number of domestic animals, such as horses, pigs, boars, chinchillas, or even dogs which appear to also serve occasionally as intermediate hosts Scharf et al 2004;Bottcher et al 2013;Ueno et al 2012), and in zoo animals (Rehmann et al 2005). …”

Cystic and Alveolar Echinococcosis: Fraternal Twins both in Search of Optimal Treatment

“…However, in all endemic areas, including Europe and Asia, larval infection with symptoms close to those observed in humans have more and more often been recognized in a number of domestic animals, such as horses, pigs, boars, or even dogs which appear to also serve occasionally as intermediate hosts Scharf et al 2004;Bottcher et al 2013;Ueno et al 2012). In addition, AE cases observed in zoo animals, such as monkeys or lemurs, have received much attention in the recent years in Europe and Japan (Rehmann et al 2005), and AE was also observed in exotic pets, such as chinchillas (Staebler et al 2007).…”