Epidemiology of gastrointestinal helminthiasis of small ruminants in selected sites of North Gondar zone, Northwest Ethiopia

Abstract

A cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the prevalence and risk factors associated with small ruminant helminthiasis in north Gondar zone, northwest Ethiopia from November-January, 2008. A total of 558 small ruminants (458 sheep and 100 goats) were examined using standard parasitological procedure. The study revealed that the overall prevalence of helminthiasis was 47.67%. The species level prevalence of helminthiasis was 46.07% and 55% in sheep and goats respectively. Strongyles were the most prevalent parasites encountered in the area followed by Fasciola. A statistically significant difference was found in prevalence between sheep and goat. Agroecology was found to be associated with prevalence rate and species of parasite found. Sex and age of the animals were shown to have association with prevalence but significant difference was not found. Therefore during the control and treatment of small ruminant helminthiasis agroecology, species, age and sex of the animals should be considered as potential risk factors for the occurrence of the disease in the study areas.

Prevalence and Risk Factors of Gastrointestinal Nematodes Infections in Small Ruminants in Tullo District, Western Harerghe, Ethiopia

“…This finding agrees with the reports of other researchers; Regassa et al [6] and Dagnachew et al [13] who reported 54.1% and 47.67% from Ethiopia, respectively. However, it is relatively lower than 79.09% [14], 76.3% [15] 59.89% [16] and 68.1% [17] reports from different parts of the country.…”

“…This finding is in agreement with reports from Gambia and Kenya that indicated GIT helminthes affect both ages equally [24,28] and there are instances where younger animals were reported with high rate of parasitic infection [16]. In contrary, other authors have documented that nematode infection is higher in adult and old animals than the younger [11,13,29]. However, with this study we ascribed the absence of significant difference in parasites infection between ages of animals.…”

“…The absence of association between sexes is consistent with previous reports [6,[29][30][31]. However, Dagnachew et al [13] reported a higher prevalence of helminth infection in females and Raza et al [18] have documented higher prevalence of helminth infection in males.…”

Infection levels of gastrointestinal parasites in sheep and goats in Papua New Guinea

“…Goats were also infected with a wider spectrum of GI parasites. This contradicts some previous studies that found a lower prevalence in goats (Kanyari et al, 2009;Khan et al, 2010;Abebe et al, 2011), but is in agreement with a number of other studies, which also reported higher parasite prevalence in goats (Regassa et al, 2006;Nwosu et al, 2007;Gadahi et al, 2009;Dagnachew et al, 2011). Hoste et al (2008) suggested that goats do not develop resistance as efficiently as sheep and this may be an explanation for our findings.…”

Seasonal Dynamics of Haemonchosis in Sheep and Goats in Tiruchirappalli District, India

“…This is still very low compared to the prevalence reported in other countries: 82% in Togo (Bonfoh et al, 1995); 94% in Middle Guinea (Barry et al, 2002) and 60% in Eastern Ethiopia (Sissay, 2007). Lower prevalence also been reported elsewhere (Tariq et al, 2010;Dagnachew et al, 2011;Qamar et al, 2011).…”