The State of Knowledge on Intestinal Helminths in Free-Roaming Dogs in Southern South America

RITOSSA, LUCIANO; FLORES, VERÓNICA; VIOZZI, GUSTAVO

Canine Genetics, Health and Medicine

IntechOpen

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2021; p. 1 - 34

In South America there are more dogs per person than in developed countries.Many owners allow their dogs to roam freely in public areas, which favours thespread of zoonotic diseases. The objective of this work is to describe, throughbibliographic analysis, the occurrence, prevalence, species richness, and distributionof intestinal helminth parasites found in dog faeces from urban and rural areasof southern South America (Argentina-Chile-Uruguay). Using three databases, weperformed a systematic review of articles published between 2000 and 2020 inindexed journals. A total of 219 articles was evaluated for eligibility, and of these 67were included in the final analysis; 48 correspond to Argentina, 17 to Chile, and 2 toUruguay. The total number of parasite taxa recorded was 22, the most frequentlyoccurring species being Toxocara canis, Ancylostoma sp., Trichuris vulpis and Echinococcussp. Species richness was correlated with sample size and varied between 1 and10 species. In addition, disease risk is not homogeneously distributed. Due to thehigh infection levels in dogs, urban and rural dwellers are at risk of infection withzoonotic diseases transmitted by these animals, therefore a One Health approach topublic health would be advisable.