The prevalence of goat hypodermosis in Greece.

Goat hypodermosis caused by Przhevalskiana silenus is common in Greece causing quite serious losses on animal production and breeding, but no data regarding the prevalence of this parasitic disease were available within the last 17 years. Towards this end, at the slaughter house of the area of Thessaloniki, the number of affected hides due to skin penetration by P. silenus larvae was recorded and the prevalence was assessed to be 54.2%. The mean number of holes found per hide was 27.07 (ranged from 0 to 162 holes per hide). Moreover, a total of 4900 goat blood serum samples were collected from different parts of the country and tested for hypodermosis using the ELISA method. Based on the results of this test, the prevalence of the infection was found to be 49.2%, varying from place to place between 4.6 and 85.1%. The range of the infection per flock was from 0 up to 100%.