Distribution of Taenia saginata cysts in carcases of experimentally infected calves and its significance for routine meat inspection.

The distribution of Taenia saginata cysts was recorded in 23 experimentally infected calves. The calves harboured between two and 2569 cysts. A median of 15.7 per cent of the cysts were located in the heart and 6.5 per cent in the masseter muscles, the organs usually considered as the most important predilection sites. From these findings a simple probability model was used to estimate the meat inspection sensitivity at different infection levels. It was concluded that the possibility of detecting infected cattle is limited especially when, as in Denmark, the majority of animals are lightly infected.