Seasonal Occurrence of Cattle Fascioliasis in Kelantan, Malaysia

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Fascioliasis is a common disease of cattle, but it remains a neglected disease in Malaysia. Several studies have been published in the past to address the significant economic losses to the livestock industry due to fascioliasis, but very few have investigated the effect of climatic factors in the occurrence of the disease. We performed a longitudinal study by examining 40 cattle on a monthly basis for a period of 12 months. In addition, the effect of climatic factors such as temperature, humidity, rainfall, and pan evaporation in the disease occurrence were analysed by Pearson’s correlation. We found that cattle fascioliasis is prevalent in Kelantan, and the occurrence of cattle fascioliasis was positively correlated with rainfall and humidity and negatively correlated with evaporation. These observations suggest that the implementation of preventive strategies during monsoon season, which has higher rainfall and humidity and lower evaporation, should be considered to effectively control cattle fascioliasis in Kelantan. ABSTRACT: A longitudinal study was conducted in five randomly selected farms in Kelantan, Malaysia to determine the seasonal occurrence of cattle fascioliasis and its association with climatic factors. A total of 480 faecal samples were collected by a random purposive sampling method from July 2018 to June 2019. The faecal samples were examined for the presence of Fasciola eggs using a formalin ether sedimentation technique. Meteorological data including temperature, humidity, rainfall, and pan evaporation were obtained from a local meteorological station. The overall prevalence of cattle fascioliasis in Kelantan was 45.8%. The prevalence was observed to be slightly higher during the wet season from August to December (50–58%) than during the dry season from January to June (30–45%). Meanwhile, the mean eggs per gram (EPG) were highest in June (191.1 ± 0.48) and lowest in October (77.62 ± 95.5). However, there were no significant differences in the mean of EPG between the monthly prevalence, tested using one-way ANOVA (p = 0.1828). A statistically significant association (p = 0.014) was observed between the disease and cattle breeds, with Charolais and Brahman showing lower odds of having the disease. There were significant moderate-to-strong positive correlations between cattle fascioliasis and rainfall (r = 0.666; p = 0.018) and humidity (r = 0.808; p = 0.001), as well as strong negative correlations with evaporation (r = −0.829; p = 0.001). The results indicated that the higher prevalence of cattle fascioliasis in Kelantan was correlated with the climatic factors, which include higher rainfall and humidity and lower evaporation.