Faciola hepatica prevalence in Pakistan, Fasciolosis treatment and control

Author: Muhammad Amin

(DVM, UVAS)

Fasciolosis is caused by flukes called as Fasciola hepatica and F.gigantica. It is distributed all over the world. But my discussion is for Pakistan. Fasciolosis is prevalent in rice cultivating area such as Sheikhupura, Siddiquia colony, Bhutto colony, Depalpur, Okara, Shakkar Garh.

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Fasciola hepatica causes disease in all animals e.g sheep cattle, llama, buffalo even in human beings. It is severe in sheep even it can cause death of sheep. All these are final host but Snail is intermediate host.

Life cycle of Fasciola hepatica

We are going to discuss the life cycle. Then I shall tell you at what stage and how we can break the life cycle of  fasciola hepatica for the prevention of disease. Now this is the life cycle for Fasciola hepatica.

Eggs pass in feces. After 3 hours, eggs hatch and meracidium evolve at 22-26℃. Meracidium finds its host which is snail and convert into sporocyst, rediae and cercariae in snail.

Free swimming cercariae encyst in aquatic environment and convert into metacercariae. 

Metacercariae on vegetation ingested by final host, when metacercariae ingested by host and reach to duodenum, where it finds suitable environment so it excyst and peneterate the intestinal wall to find its final destination which is liver parenchyma and bile ducts. 

During its migration the fluke is immature but it becomes mature in liver and bile duct. Mature flukes lay eggs, passes into feces and the cycle starts again.

How to prevent Fasciolosis?

As you know snail is intermediate host so infective stage for snail is meracedium and infective stage for final host is metacercariae. If we break the cycle at these two stages so we can prevent disease.

Clinical signs of Fasiolosis

Fasciolosis may manifest fever,  abdominal pain, urticarial, anemia, jaundice, anorexia submandibular edema and respiratory signs. If it become chronic so animal suffer from severe diarrhea. In it, respiration increase which is compensatory mechanism. Anemia is here so animal cannot get enough oxygen so respiration increases to compensate that.

Clinical signs of Fasciolosis in cattle

Post mortem signs of Faciolosis

  

When animal die from fasciolosis so some lesions are found from which we can diagnose that it is fasciolosis. In post mortem we shall see the tracts of flukes on liver parenchyma and even mature flukes will be there in bile duct.

Diagnosis of the disease in animals

We can diagnose by history ,clinical signs. Fecal examination, CBC, LFT and ELISA. If we read the CBC report so we will come to know that PCV, Hb and RBCs will be low. If we read the LFT so gemma glutamyltranferase will be high because of bile duct damage. 

Anemia is there because of haemorrhage when flukes move from intestine to liver. when the liver is damaged by the flukes so the capacity of liver to synthesize the protein is compromised so osmotic pressure in blood vessels decrease and fluid come out from vessels and accumulate in extracellular spaces which is called as edema.

Fasciolosis treatment guidelines

To treat the fasciolosis we can use liver tonic such as Jetepar or Hepagen, antibiotics such as oxytetracyclin, Penicillin, NSAIDS such as Ketojet, Meloxicam and dewormer . The drug of choice for fasciolosis is trichlabendazole bid. We can also use nitroxinil, albendazole, closantel, clorsulon.

Fasciolosis and its control

We can control fasciolosis by controlling the population of snail by molluscicides but it has some disadvantages. We can also use copper sulphate but it is toxic for sheep and other chemicals are so expensive. Use the dewormer prophylactically before the rainy season which are August, September, January and February.