Spurious infection by Calodium hepaticum (Bancroft, 1983) Moravec, 1982 and intestinal parasites in forest reserve dwellers in Western Brazilian Amazon

Abstract

Subsistence hunting is the main source of protein for forest reserve dwellers, contributing to the development of spurious infections by Calodium hepaticum, frequently associated with the consumption of the liver from wild mammals. The prevalence of infections by soil-transmitted helminths (STHs) and intestinal protozoa is considered an indicator of the social vulnerability of a country, besides providing information on habits, customs and quality of life of a given population. Intestinal parasites mostly affect poor rural communities with limited access to clean water and adequate sanitation. This study reports the results of a parasitological survey carried out in 2017 and 2019, in two municipalities (Xapuri and Sena Madureira) in Acre State. Stool samples were collected from 276 inhabitants. Upon receipt, each sample was divided into two aliquots. Fresh samples without preservative were processed and examined by the Kato-Katz technique. Samples fixed in 10% formalin were processed by the spontaneous sedimentation and the centrifugal sedimentation techniques. Calodium hepaticum eggs were found in three stool samples. The overall STH prevalence was 44.9%. The hookworm prevalence (19.2%) was higher than that of Ascaris lumbricoides (2.5%) and Trichuris trichiura (0.7%), an unexpected finding for municipalities belonging to the Western Brazilian Amazon. When considering parasites transmitted via the fecal-oral route, Endolimax nana and Entamoeba coli showed the highest positivity rates, of 13% and 10.9%, respectively. This study is the first report of spurious infection by C. hepaticum among forest reserve dwellers that consume undercooked liver of lowland pacas. Additionally, this is the first report of Blastocystis sp. in Acre State.

Diversity of helminths with zoonotic potential and molecular characterization of Toxocara canis infecting domestic dogs from locations of Amazon and Atlantic Forest Brazilian biomes

“…R. nana eggs were also found in studies involving the feces of wild carnivores (wolves and foxes), and the authors suggested that the finding may have been due to the ingestion of infected rodents or even eggs laid in the environment by definitive hosts (Elmore et al, 2013;van Kesteren et al, 2015). Oliveira et al (2022) demonstrated humans being act as carriers of capillarid eggs (spurious infection) in the same locations in the Amazon region analyzed here. Likewise, the capillarid eggs reported may have been ingested through the consumption of the viscera of parasitized predated/hunted rodents, as Neves et al (2017) report dogs from the same areas in the state of Acre being fed with this type of material.…”