Current Status for Gastrointestinal Nematode Diagnosis in Small Ruminants: Where Are We and Where Are We Going?

Abstract

Gastrointestinal nematode (GIN) parasites pose a significant economic burden particularly in small ruminant production systems. Anthelmintic resistance is a serious concern to the effective control of GIN parasites and has fuelled the focus to design and promote sustainable control of practices of parasite control. Many facets of sustainable GIN parasite control programs rely on the ability to diagnose infection both qualitatively and quantitatively. Diagnostics are required to determine anthelmintic efficacies, for targeted treatment programs and selection of animals for parasite resistant breeding. This review describes much of the research investigated to date to improve the current diagnostic for the above practices which is based on counting the number of parasite eggs in faeces.

Resistensi Cacing Nematoda Gastrointestinal Terhadap Golongan Macrocyclic Lactone pada Ternak Ruminansia

“…Infeksi cacing nematoda gastrointestinal merupakan masalah penting dalam usaha peternakan karena dapat menghambat pertumbuhan, gangguan reproduksi, penurunan produksi, anoreksia, diare, anemia atau bahkan kematian ternak (Entrocasso et al, 2008;Sutherland and Leathwick, 2011;Roepstorff et al, 2011;Charlier et al, 2018). Cacing nematoda gastrointestinal yang banyak menginfeksi ruminansia adalah Trichostrongylus spp, Strongyloides, Haemonchus spp, Nematodirus dan Cooperia spp (Houdijk and Athanasiadou, 2003;Preston et al, 2014;Belina et al, 2017;Islam et al, 2017). Penggunaan anthelmintik spektrum luas seperti golongan benzimidazole, imidothiazole dan golongan macrocyclic lactones telah menjadi andalan dalam pengendalian infeksi cacing nematoda gastrointestinal dalam usaha peternakan selama hampir 40 tahun yang pada akhirnya menimbulkan resistensi cacing terhadap anthelmintik (Sargison et al, 2001;Kaplan and Vidyashankar, 2012;Geurden et al, 2015).…”

Influence of environmental factors on the detection of blood in sheep faeces using visible-near infrared spectroscopy as a measure of Haemonchus contortus infection

“…This method is also often required to demonstrate anthelmintic e cacy for the registration of new control products, but the loss of life makes it an impractical method for use on farms (11). Faecal worm egg count (FWEC) is the method currently recommended for GIN monitoring by the World Association for the Advancement of Veterinary Parasitology and is used by many sheep producers (12,13). The most commonly used FWEC technique, the McMaster method, is known to have relatively low analytical sensitivity of 10-50 eggs per gram of faeces (epg) and high variability between subsamples (14)(15)(16)(17).…”

Influence of environmental factors on the detection of blood in sheep faeces using visible-near infrared spectroscopy as a measure of Haemonchus contortus infection

“…This method is also often required to demonstrate anthelmintic e cacy for the registration of new control products, but the need to euthanase sheep makes it an impractical method for use on farms [11]. Faecal worm egg count (FWEC) is the method currently recommended for GIN monitoring by the World Association for the Advancement of Veterinary Parasitology and is used by many sheep producers [12,13]. The most commonly used FWEC technique, the McMaster method, is known to have relatively low analytical sensitivity of 10-50 eggs per gram of faeces (epg) and high variability between subsamples [14,15,16,17].…”