Ectoparasites and Endoparasites of Peridomestic House-Rats in Ile-Ife, Nigeria and Implication on Human Health
,
Abstract
Background: There has never been a single case report of any parasitic zoono-sis in Ile-Ife while just a case of human Acanthocephalan infection in Nigeria is available.
Methods: Fifty (house–rats) Rattus rattus (Linnaeus, 1758) were caught in houses and raw food sellers’ stalls in a market in Ile-Ife. A caught rat was removed from the cage and sacrificed by cervical jerking. A rat was weighed, measured, quickly following which thick and thin blood films on microscope slides were made from blood collected from the tail vein. The rat was examined for ectoparasites then dissected to check for endoparasites.
Results: Two ectoparasites (Xenopsylla cheopis and Laelaptid mite) were recovered from 19 (38.0%) of the rats. Five genera of helminthes (Moniliformis, Hymenolepis, Taenia, Trichuris and Trichinella) were recovered from 29 (58.0%) of the rats while seven genera of protozoa organisms (Amoeba, Dientamoeba, Entamoeba, Retortamo-nas, Trichomonas, Chilomastix and Trypanosoma) were recovered from 48 (96.0%) of them. There was no correlation (Spearman’s correlation coefficient = -0.111) between the weight of the individual rat and the total number of alimentary canal acquired parasites.
Conclusion: In relation to human health, implications of the rats serving as res-ervoir hosts for the different pathogens are highlighted. In view of the possibility of unexpected zoonosis arising from the parasites found in the peridomestic rats in this investigation and others not found, and in view of the difficulties that may be associated with diagnosing such ailment, especially by a clinician who trained locally, this report should be like raising awareness to these salient facts.
Price BW, Chitwood BG. Incidence of internal parasites in wild rats in Washington D.C. J Par-asitol. 1931; 18:55.
Tsuchiya H, Rector LB. Studies on intestinal parasites among wild rats caught in St. Louis. Am J Trop Med. 1956; 16:705-714.
Mishera GS, Gonzalez JP. Results of a study on the endoparasites of the rat Rattus norvegicus in Tunisia. Archives de I’ Institut Pasteur de Tunis. 1975; 52(1/2): 71-87.
Tolani MT, Gandhi NM, Freitas YM. Micro-bial Flora of the alimentary tract of Rattus rattus and Rattus norvegicus from Bombay. Indian J Mi-crobiol. 1977; 11(1-2): 13-14.
Kamiya M, Kanda T. Helminth parasites of rats from Ishigaki Island, South western Japan. Japanese J Parasitol. 1977; 26(4): 271-275.
Balachandra DV, Ranade DR. A preliminary survey of helminth parasites of rats from Poo-na city. India Vet J. 1978; 55(2): 175-176.
Monath TP, Maher M, Casals J, Kissling RE, Cacciapuoti A. Lassa fever in Eastern Province of Sierra Leone 11. Clin and Virological Studies in selected hospitalized patients. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 1974; 23:1140-1149.
Wulff H, Lange J. Indirect immunofluores-cence for diagnosis of Lassa fever infection. Bull WHO. 1975; 52:429-436.
Ikeh EI, Anosike JC, Okon E. Acanthocepha-lan infection in man in Northern Nigeria. J Helminthol. 1992; 66(3):241-2
Nigerian Population Commission. 2006; 282-283.
Vinogradov BS, Argyropulo AI. Fauna of the USSR. Mammals, Mammals, Key to the Ro-dents. 2nd ed. Moscow: Leningrad Pub; 1941.
Cable RM. An illustrated Laboratory manual of Parasitology. 4th ed. Minneapolis, Minn: Bur-gess Publishing Company; 1958.
Thienpont D, Rochette F, Vanparijs OFJ. Di-agnosing Helminthiasis by Corprological Ex-amination. 2nd ed. Beerse, Janssen Research Foundation; 1968.
World Health Organization News letter. Lassa fever 2005.
Neafie R, Marty AM. Unusual Infections in Humans. Clin Infect Diseas. 1993; 39:173-178.
Sahba GH, Arfaa F, Rastegar M. Human infec-tion with Moniliformis dubius (Acanthocephala) (Meyer 1932) (Syn Moniliformis moniliformis) (Bremser 1811) (Travassos 1915) in Iran. Trans Roy Soc Trop Med Hyg. 1970; 64:284-286.
Counselman K, Field C, Lea G. Moniliformis moniliformis from a child in Florida. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 1989; 41:88-90.
Prociv P, Walker J, Crompton LJ. First record of human acanthocephalan infection in Aus-tralia. Med J Aust. 1990; 152:215-216.
Berenji F, Abdolmajid F, Hosseininjad Z. A case of Moniliformis moniliformis (Acanthocepha-lan) infection in Iran. Korean J Parasitol. 2007; 45: 145-148.
Salehabadi A, Mowlavi G, Sadjjadi SM. Human infections with Moniliformis moniliformis (Brem-ser1811) (Travasso 1915) in Iran: another case report after three decades. Vector Borne Zo-onotic Disease. 2008; 8:101-103.
Sahar MM, Madani TA, Al Moshen IZ. A child with an acanthocephalan infection. Ann Saudi Med. 2006; 26:321-324.
| Files | ||
| Issue | Vol 9 No 1 (2014) | |
| Section | Articles | |
| Keywords | ||
| Ectoparasites Endoparasites Health House-rats Peridomestic | ||
| Rights and permissions | |
|
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. |
