ZOONOSIS EN EL PASADO: CARNÍVOROS Y CIERVOS COMO FUENTES DE ZOONOSIS PARASITARIAS EN PATAGONIA

BELTRAME M. ORNELA; TIETZE ELEONOR; BELLUSCI AGUSTÍN; SARDELLA NORMA H.

Arica

Congreso; PAMinSA; 2017

Zoonoses are defined as diseases or infections that are naturally transmissible from vertebrate or invertebrate animals to humans and vice versa. Zoonoses are currently considered as some of the most important threats for Public Health worldwide. Viruses, parasites, bacteria and fungi can cause zoonotic infections. Numerous zoonoses known today have occurred since antiquity. Palaeoparasitology is the study of parasite remains from archaeological and palaeontological sites, focused on the knowledge of parasite-induced illness of humans and animals in the past and on the palaeoecological knowledge of the environment, ecology, settlement, diet, hygiene and health in the antiquity. Palaeoparasitological studies on South American ancient populations have shown the presence of zoonotic helminthes. In archaeological and paleontological sites from Patagonia in particular, paleoparasitological studies on carnivores and herbivores coprolites had shown the presence of several parasitic species, some of them zoonotic. From ancient times, a close interaction among humans, carnivores and herbivores was present. This interaction may have favored the transmission of zoonotic parasitic diseases. The objective of the present work is to display the findings on carnivores and deer paleoparasitological studies done at present from archaeological sites from Patagonia and to analyze the results from a zoonotic point of view. The presence of parasites potentially causatives of human diseases such as trematodioses, metastrongylosis, trichuriosis, strongylida and trychostrongylida gastroenteritis, toxocarosis and dioctophymosis were registered. Results displayed in this study are in line with the reconstruction of the scenario of zoonoses in the past and with the diseases that the human populations and animals from Patagonia could be exposed.