Zoonotic parasitic organisms on vegetables: Impact of production system characteristics on presence, prevalence on vegetables in northwestern Iran and washing methods for removal

Brain food: rethinking food-borne toxocariasis

“…Avcioglu et al (2011) did not detect any helminth eggs in vegetable samples following a washing step with clean water alone (Avcioglu et al, 2011), a finding supported by other studies in the literature (Fallah et al, 2012;Rostami et al, 2016). Alternative washing methods for the removal of parasitic species from vegetables have been investigated, with 0.95% calcium hypochlorite solution found to be more effective at reducing parasitic contamination than 1% lemon juice, 1% vinegar or a diluted dishwashing detergent (Hajipour et al, 2021). However, consumer safety and public acceptance of chemical food treatments need to be considered.…”

“…In a recent study, Hajipour et al (2021) assessed the impact of fencing-off farmland on the contamination of vegetables with T. canis and T. cati in Iran and found unfenced cropping areas had a vegetable contamination rate of 55.3% compared to 9.2% in fenced areas (Hajipour et al, 2021). Whilst this control step seems logical, the size of the farms is important to consider: in this study, the largest site was 20 hectares, considerably smaller than the average farm size of 87 hectares in England, UK (Defra, 2021).…”

“…In the case of soil, from 3 g up to 200 g of dried sample has been used, which is typically extracted up to 5 cm from the soil surface (Paller and Babia-Abion, 2019; Tyungu et al, 2020). For vegetable testing, preferred weights of samples usually range from 100 to 250 g, with the processing of sedimented washing solution and subsequent residue concentration commonly undertaken prior to parasitological analysis via microscopy (Abougrain et al, 2010;Fallah et al, 2016;Hajipour et al, 2021). Some studies have additionally utilized PCR-based molecular assays, to differentiate between T. canis and T. cati eggs in soil samples (Choobineh et al, 2019;Tyungu et al, 2020) and vegetable produce (Guggisberg et al, 2020).…”

“…worldwide, with leafy vegetables such as salad leaves seemingly more susceptible compared to other vegetable types. For example, in Iran, Hajipour et al (2021) reported 40.2 and 33.0% of lettuce samples tested to contain the eggs of T. cati and T. canis respectively, compared with radishes from which only T. cati was isolated in 6.1% of samples (Hajipour et al, 2021). In Libya, T. canis and T. cati eggs were detected in 37 and 48% of lettuces compared to 14 and 8% of cucumbers, respectively (Abougrain et al, 2010).…”

First report demonstrating the presence of Toxocara spp. eggs on vegetables grown in community gardens in Europe

“…The metal sieve was rinsed using 200 ml water, and the rinsate centrifuged at 2000 × g for 5 min to obtain a pellet for analysis. A sedimentation assay modified from Hajipour et al (2021) , in which spiked samples were washed in beakers containing 500 ml of physiological saline (0.95% NaCl), followed by overnight sedimentation and subsequent concentration of the sediment by centrifugation at 2000 × g for 5 min. The pellets underwent NaCl flotation for one hour at room temperature, and the top 20 ml of flotation solution aspirated for further analysis.…”