Captive Agamid lizards in Germany: Prevalence, pathogenicity and therapy of gastrointestinal protozoan and helminth infections

Publication date: Available online 15 January 2019Source: Comparative Immunology, Microbiology and Infectious DiseasesAuthor(s): Malek J. Hallinger, Anja Taubert, Carlos Hermosilla, Frank MutschmannAbstractReptiles are becoming popular pets in many parts of the world. They are also known to harbor numerous gastrointestinal parasites. We used faecal smears to examine 748 stool samples from 14 different agamid lizard species. In addition, we used coproantigen ELISA tests (11 samples) and immunofluorescence assays (IFA) (19 samples) to detect reptile Cryptosporidium infections. In 28 cases, veterinarians requested therapy to treat oxyurid- and/or Isospora amphiboluri-infections and resent fecal samples after proposed therapy and anti-parasitic treatments had been applied. We also performed complete dissections of 24 deceased agamas in order to specify protozoan and helminth parasite infections.Overall, the examined fecal samples contained 6 different taxa. Oxyurids (Pharyngodonidae) were the most prevalent nematodes (41.2%), followed by I. amphiboluri (17.0%), Entamoeba spp. (0.8%), Choleoeimeria spp. (0.5%), Trichomonas spp. (0.3%), Cryptosporidium spp. (0.3%) and Strongyloides-like nematodes (0.1%). I. amphiboluri infections were significantly more prevalent (Chi-square test: χ2 = 21,5, df = 1, P <  0.001) in juvenile agamid lizards (31.9%) than in adults (14.2%). One of 11 (9.1%) coproantigen ELISA-examined samples was positive for Cryptosporidium. In 10.5% of the sa...

Source: Comparative Immunology, Microbiology and Infectious Diseases - January 16, 2019 Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: research