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Tungiasis-associated morbidity in pigs and dogs in endemic villages of Uganda

BACKGROUND: Tunga penetrans (Insecta, Siphonaptera, Tungidae) causes severe morbidity among heavily infected humans and animals in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. The clinical pathology of tungiasis in animals has never been studied systematically. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study con...

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Autores principales: Mutebi, Francis, Krücken, Jürgen, Feldmeier, Hermann, Waiswa, Charles, Mencke, Norbert, von Samson-Himmelstjerna, Georg
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4729147/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26817587
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-016-1320-0
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author Mutebi, Francis
Krücken, Jürgen
Feldmeier, Hermann
Waiswa, Charles
Mencke, Norbert
von Samson-Himmelstjerna, Georg
author_facet Mutebi, Francis
Krücken, Jürgen
Feldmeier, Hermann
Waiswa, Charles
Mencke, Norbert
von Samson-Himmelstjerna, Georg
author_sort Mutebi, Francis
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Tunga penetrans (Insecta, Siphonaptera, Tungidae) causes severe morbidity among heavily infected humans and animals in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. The clinical pathology of tungiasis in animals has never been studied systematically. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study conducted between January to March 2015, aimed at describing tungiasis-associated clinical pathology in 121 and 20 T. penetrans-infected pigs and dogs, living in nine and five endemic rural villages respectively located in Bugiri District, Busoga, Uganda. RESULTS: The parasite load of infected animals ranged from one to 246 (median 8) and one to eight (median 2) in pigs and dogs, respectively. In pigs 99.3 % and in dogs 100 % of the lesions were located on feet. In pigs, hind legs were significantly more affected than front legs (90.9 % vs. 57.9 %; p = 0.002) and also had more lesions than the front legs (median 5 vs. 1; p = 0.0001). However, in dogs localization of lesions between front and hind legs never differed significantly (front, 50 % vs. hind, 65 %; p = 0.51) and so were the number of lesions (median front = 0.5 vs. median hind = 2; p = 0.7). Acute and chronic clinical pathology coexisted. The most common disease manifestations in pigs were hoof wall erosions (68.6 %), tissue necrosis of hoof wall and skin (66.1), pain at infection sites (47.9 %), hoof deformity (45.5 %), fissures (44.6 %) and edema (44.6 %). In dogs, tungiasis mainly presented with pain at attachment site (80 %), ulcers (55 %), necrosis (30 %) as well as hyperemia and edema (both 15 %). One pig had lost dew claws while two had loose detaching claws. Despite a lower number of sand fleas, a higher proportion of infected dogs (20 %) than pigs (5.8 %) exhibited functional limb use difficulties (p = 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The pattern of clinical manifestations in pigs and dogs were very similar to those reported from affected humans and rats. The important morbidity associated with animal tungiasis makes the disease a serious veterinary health problem in sub-Saharan Africa warranting treatment and control for optimal animal production.
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spelling pubmed-47291472016-01-28 Tungiasis-associated morbidity in pigs and dogs in endemic villages of Uganda Mutebi, Francis Krücken, Jürgen Feldmeier, Hermann Waiswa, Charles Mencke, Norbert von Samson-Himmelstjerna, Georg Parasit Vectors Research BACKGROUND: Tunga penetrans (Insecta, Siphonaptera, Tungidae) causes severe morbidity among heavily infected humans and animals in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. The clinical pathology of tungiasis in animals has never been studied systematically. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study conducted between January to March 2015, aimed at describing tungiasis-associated clinical pathology in 121 and 20 T. penetrans-infected pigs and dogs, living in nine and five endemic rural villages respectively located in Bugiri District, Busoga, Uganda. RESULTS: The parasite load of infected animals ranged from one to 246 (median 8) and one to eight (median 2) in pigs and dogs, respectively. In pigs 99.3 % and in dogs 100 % of the lesions were located on feet. In pigs, hind legs were significantly more affected than front legs (90.9 % vs. 57.9 %; p = 0.002) and also had more lesions than the front legs (median 5 vs. 1; p = 0.0001). However, in dogs localization of lesions between front and hind legs never differed significantly (front, 50 % vs. hind, 65 %; p = 0.51) and so were the number of lesions (median front = 0.5 vs. median hind = 2; p = 0.7). Acute and chronic clinical pathology coexisted. The most common disease manifestations in pigs were hoof wall erosions (68.6 %), tissue necrosis of hoof wall and skin (66.1), pain at infection sites (47.9 %), hoof deformity (45.5 %), fissures (44.6 %) and edema (44.6 %). In dogs, tungiasis mainly presented with pain at attachment site (80 %), ulcers (55 %), necrosis (30 %) as well as hyperemia and edema (both 15 %). One pig had lost dew claws while two had loose detaching claws. Despite a lower number of sand fleas, a higher proportion of infected dogs (20 %) than pigs (5.8 %) exhibited functional limb use difficulties (p = 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The pattern of clinical manifestations in pigs and dogs were very similar to those reported from affected humans and rats. The important morbidity associated with animal tungiasis makes the disease a serious veterinary health problem in sub-Saharan Africa warranting treatment and control for optimal animal production. BioMed Central 2016-01-27 /pmc/articles/PMC4729147/ /pubmed/26817587 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-016-1320-0 Text en © Mutebi et al. 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Mutebi, Francis
Krücken, Jürgen
Feldmeier, Hermann
Waiswa, Charles
Mencke, Norbert
von Samson-Himmelstjerna, Georg
Tungiasis-associated morbidity in pigs and dogs in endemic villages of Uganda
title Tungiasis-associated morbidity in pigs and dogs in endemic villages of Uganda
title_full Tungiasis-associated morbidity in pigs and dogs in endemic villages of Uganda
title_fullStr Tungiasis-associated morbidity in pigs and dogs in endemic villages of Uganda
title_full_unstemmed Tungiasis-associated morbidity in pigs and dogs in endemic villages of Uganda
title_short Tungiasis-associated morbidity in pigs and dogs in endemic villages of Uganda
title_sort tungiasis-associated morbidity in pigs and dogs in endemic villages of uganda
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4729147/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26817587
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-016-1320-0
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