Prevalence and economic importance of cystic echinococcosis in slaughtered ruminants in Burdur, Turkey.

This study was conducted between April 2000 and March 2001, in 12-month period. During the study, local slaughterhouses were visited periodically for 1 year to examine the internal organs (livers, lungs, spleens and hearts) for the presence of cysts and total 1355 cattle, 218 sheep and 104 goats were examined for the cystic echinococcosis (CE). It was found that 13.5% of cattle, 26.6% of sheep and 22.1% of goats were infected with this disease. While cysts in cattle (P < 0.001) and goats (P > 0.05) were found mostly in lungs (88.5 and 82.6%, respectively), but they were mostly found in livers (P > 0.05) in sheep. In addition to this, three spleens and one heart in cattle were infected with CE. In this study, the prevalence of CE and the number of cysts in ruminants were found different when the cattle, sheep and goats examined were stratified based on age. The prevalence and the number of cysts increased with age approaching an asymptotic prevalence of one in the oldest animals (P < 0.05). The number of cysts in cattle, sheep and goats were increasing at a rate of 0.31, 0.63 and 0.42/year, respectively. The economic decrease in the value of the carcasses because of the discarded liver and lung as a result of CE was estimated as 1.1% (7.5 US dollars per cattle) for cattle, 4.37% (3.2 US dollars per sheep) for sheep and 4.26% (2.9 US dollars per goat) for goats. The minimum total loss for all infected animals was determined to be 583 US dollars in infected animals, based on the market prices in the year 2002.