Ciencia y tecnología veterinaria

Epidemiological Studies on Ovine Lungworm Species in Northern Ethiopia

Abstract

Andualem Yimer* and Abebe Desie

A cross sectional study was conducted from November, 2015 to April, 2016 to determine the prevalence, associated epidemiological factors and identifying the species of ovine respiratory helminthes circulating in and around Wogera district. Modified Baermann technique was conducted to detect first stage larvae (L1) from 386 randomly sampled sheep kept under extensive and semi intensive management systems. Out of the total 386 faecal samples examined 180 were found to harboring one or more lungworm parasites with an overall prevalence of 46.6% (180/386). Dictyocaulus filarial (D. filaria) was the dominant lungworm species with prevalence of 18.9%, followed by Mulliries capillaries (M. capillaries) 14.2%, Protostrongylus rufescens (P. rufescens) 2.3% and Mixed infection with D. filarial and M. capillaries species (11.1%). In this study, animals with poor body condition (23.1%) were highly infected with significant difference (P<0.05) than medium (14.8%) and good body conditions (8.8%). There was statistical significant difference in susceptibility between different age groups (P<0.05), the young (25.1%) being more affected than adult (22.5%) animals. Significant differences (P<0.05) were found among areas of different altitude with an infection rate of 29% and 17.6% at higher and medium altitude areas respectively. Sheep kept under extensive management system and semi intensive management system also showed statistically significant variation (P<0.05) in infection rate with different lung worm species. The overall results obtained during this investigation showed that D. filaria is the most common lungworm species in its not only high prevalence rate, but also high degree of association with occurrence of clinical respiratory signs. The result of this study indicated that lungworms in sheep are common parasites which induce heavy economic loss that needs greater attention due to its impact on sheep production of the study area.