Prevalence of bovine fasciolosis and economic loss due to liver condemnation at Debre Markos Municipal Abattoir, Northern Ethiopia

The study was carried out from November 2012 to May 2013 to determine the prevalence of fasciolosis and the economic loss incurred due to liver condemnation in cattle slaughtered at DebreMarkos municipal abattoir. From 384 faecal and liver samples tasted, a prevalence of 43.23% and 90.88% was found respectively. Therewas also an association (p < 0.05) among age and BCS groups of bovine fasciolosis prevalence. According to the intensity ofpathological lesions in affected livers, 60 (61.89%) constituted severely affected; the rest, 100 (28.65%) and 33 (9.46%) weremoderately and lightly affected respectively. The number of flukesrecovered in moderately affected livers was higher (Mean = 90.84) than in either severely (Mean = 33.17) or lightly (Mean = 47.33) affected livers. Species identification revealed that Fasciola hepatica was more prevalent (36.10%) than Fasciola gigantica (1.72%), mixed(1.43%) and unidentified (immature) fluke (3.72%). The average economic loss because of liver condemnation was 13,268,480Ethiopian Birr (698,341.05 USD) per annum, indicating that the disease has high economic importance. It is therefore concluded that fasciolosis causes significant losses to farmers, butchers and consumers. Finally, the abattoir based prevalence recorded in the study area and the loss incurred suggest that a detailed epidemiological study as well as assessment of the overall economic loss due to fasciolosis is required to implement systematic disease-prevention and control methods.

کلیدواژه ها:

Abattoir ، Bovine ، Economic importance ، Fasciolosis ،