Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Distribution of Trichinella spiralis larvae in muscles from a naturally infected horse.
- Journal:
- Veterinary parasitology
- Year:
- 1998
- Authors:
- Pozio, E et al.
- Affiliation:
- Laboratory of Parasitology · Italy
- Species:
- horse
Plain-English summary
In a study about a horse infected with a parasite called Trichinella spiralis, researchers found that this horse, imported from Romania, was the first naturally infected horse identified in routine checks. They examined muscle samples from different parts of the horse's body and discovered that the muscles in the head had the highest levels of infection, while the diaphragm, which is usually checked for this parasite, had much lower levels. This suggests that previous tests might have missed infected horses because they focused on the diaphragm instead of other muscles. The findings highlight the need to look at different muscle areas when testing for this parasite in horses.
Abstract
Epidemiological investigations conducted during 10 trichinellosis outbreaks between 1975 and 1994 showed that horse-meat was the probable source of infection. Though hundreds of thousands of horses have been examined at abattoirs in America and Europe to detect Trichinella infection by artificial digestion or trichinelloscopy, an infected horse has never been detected during routine analysis, which consists of examining 1 g of tissue muscle from the diaphragm. In November 1996, a naturally infected horse imported from Romania was detected in Southern Italy. The parasite was identified as Trichinella spiralis by random amplified polymorphic DNA analysis. Artificial digestion of tissue samples from 60 different muscles from 13 different sites of the infected horse carcass showed that M. levator Labii maxillaris, M. hyoideus transversus, and M. buccinator were the 3 most infected muscles. Muscles from the tongue, the masseter, and the diaphragm, which have normally been considered the muscles of choice for diagnosis, were the 4th, 6th and 13th most infected muscles, respectively. When comparing body sites, muscle tissues from the head showed the highest level of infection, followed by muscles from the neck. This finding may explain the negative results that have been obtained in the past during routine examination of the diaphragm of horses.
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Search related cases →Original publication: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9493307/