Abstract
Giardiosis in domestic ruminants is an important parasitic disease and it has been shown to impair growth in lambs, thus constituting a disease of economic concern. In Europe, surveys on the prevalence of giardiosis in sheep are limited. In order to obtain additional information on the presence of giardiosis and on the potential zoonotic role of Giardia duodenalis affecting sheep in central Italy, faecal samples of 325 native sheep from 20 farms in Abruzzo region (Italy) were examined for the presence of Giardia and the isolates were genotyped and sequenced. G. duodenalis cysts were detected in five of the 325 sheep (1.5%) (mean of 450 cysts/g) coming from two farms. The 770-bp fragment of the glutamate dehydrogenase gene and the 753-bp fragment of the β-giardin gene showed 100% homology with the Assemblage AI. This work suggests for the first time in Italy that sheep carry a Giardia genotype, which can be a potential public health hazard.
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Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to Prof. Ronald Fayer (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Animal and Natural Resources Institute, Beltsville, MD, USA) for his very helpful comments, advice and critical suggestions on the manuscript. The authors are also grateful to Dr. T. Yong (Department of Parasitology and Institute of Tropical Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Korea) for providing the DNA extract of G. duodenalis. The authors declare that the experiments comply with the current laws of the country in which they were performed.
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Giangaspero, A., Paoletti, B., Iorio, R. et al. Prevalence and molecular characterization of Giardia duodenalis from sheep in central Italy. Parasitol Res 96, 32–37 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-005-1317-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-005-1317-7