Abstracto

Occurrence of Gnathostoma spinigerum in tigers and leopards.

Singh KP, Shrivastav AB, Gupta SK, Agrawal S, Singh K

The occurrence of Gnathostomiasis has been reported during post mortem examination of carcasses of 3 free-range tigers and two leopards from different Tiger Reserves of central India. Pathological lesions were characterized by bunches of nodules in the pyloric part of the stomach filled with light reddish colour worms with chronic gastritis. The parasites observed in the colony with 1:9 ratios of male and female worms measured 10-26 mm × 1.8-2.2 mm males and 25-35 mm × 1.8-2.3 mm females that were collected and kept in normal saline. The morphological observation of worms and eggs were envisaged for species identification. The recovered parasites from carcasses of leopards and tigers were identical to the morphological features of Gnathostoma spinigerum. The parasite have potential for zoonotic migration as the aquatic copepods act as their primary intermediated host and fishes harbour the encysted larval stage of the parasite may lead the occurrence of infection mostly in carnivores while accidentally infect the human beings. Such infection has already been reported in eastern Indian tribes resides in the close vicinity of the tiger reserves and national parks thus the migration of zoonotic disease takes place through common water resources of sylvatic and domestic cycle vice-versa.