Prevalence of porcine cysticercosis in Bareilly , Northern India

Results Porcine cysticercosis caused by a metacestode of zoonotically important cestode parasite is transmitted to humans through the ingestion of raw or undercooked pork. A more severe manifestation of infection in humans is development of neurocysticercosis (NCC) [1-3]. Pigs acquire infection through consumption of human faeces, or through feed and drinking water contaminated with ova. In pigs, the cysticerci commonly develop in skeletal muscles, tongue, diaphragm, heart and other organs, including brain and eye [4, 5]. The infection is endemic in many developing countries of Latin America [6, 7], Africa [8] and Asia [9] and the economic loss resulting from condemnation of infected pork is substantially high [5, 10-12]. Specific diagnosis of porcine cysticercosis is critical for identification of endemic regions and for development of strategies to control the infection [13]. Further, prevalence of porcine cysticercosis is suggestive of an active transmission of the parasite between pigs and humans [14]. Though prevalence of cysticercosis has been reported from several parts of India, information from the Bareilly region is scanty. Therefore, the present work was undertaken to study the level of prevalence of porcine cysticercosis in Bareilly region of northern India. The investigation was carried out in local makeshift slaughter houses of Bareilly District, located in the state of Uttar Pradesh in the northern part of India. Bareilly District is located between latitude 28 and longitude 78 and 79 47 east. The climate is hot, humid and subtropical, however, during winters the temperature deeps to 2 to 15 C. The annual rainfall is around 500–700 mm.


Results
Porcine cysticercosis caused by a metacestode of zoonotically important cestode parasite is transmitted to humans through the ingestion of raw or undercooked pork.A more severe manifestation of infection in humans is development of neurocysticercosis (NCC) [1][2][3].Pigs acquire infection through consumption of human faeces, or through feed and drinking water contaminated with ova.In pigs, the cysticerci commonly develop in skeletal muscles, tongue, diaphragm, heart and other organs, including brain and eye [4,5].The infection is endemic in many developing countries of Latin America [6,7], Africa [8] and Asia [9] and the economic loss resulting from condemnation of infected pork is substantially high [5,[10][11][12].Specific diagnosis of porcine cysticercosis is critical for identification of endemic regions and for development of strategies to control the infection [13].Further, prevalence of porcine cysticercosis is suggestive of an active transmission of the parasite between pigs and humans [14].Though prevalence of cysticercosis has been reported from several parts of India, information from the Bareilly region is scanty.
Therefore, the present work was undertaken to study the level of prevalence of porcine cysticercosis in Bareilly region of northern India.
The investigation was carried out in local makeshift slaughter houses of Bareilly District, located in the state of Uttar Pradesh in the northern part of India.Bareilly District is located between latitude 28 and longitude 78 and 79 47 east.The climate is hot, humid and subtropical, however, during winters the temperature deeps to 2 to 15 C. The annual rainfall is around 500-700 mm.Two local makeshift slaughter houses were visited once in a week, during August, 2012 to July, 2013.The slaughtered pigs were systematically examined for through deep incision into several organs, , the tongue, masseter muscles, myocardium, thigh muscles, and liver [15] 175 pigs, slaughtered at Bareilly region, were screened for cysticerci.The measly pork was brought to laboratory on ice and processed immediately.The cysts were dissected out aseptically from the muscles and were fixed in 10% alcohol formal acetic acid (AFA) solution and stained with Borax carmine.
The data were analyzed by oneway ANOVA test using the SPSS version 16 (SAS USA) and results were expressed as Mean±SD.

Cysticercus cellulosae,
Taenia solium, T. solium C. cellulosae viz. .The objective of this study was to investigate the prevalence of cysticercosis in pigs slaughtered at makeshift houses in Bareilly, Northern India.

T. solium
Local makeshift slaughter houses were visited weekly in Bareilly to explore the prevalence of the porcine cysticercosis in this area.175 pigs were screened for cysticercosis and prevalence was correlated to age, sex and breed of pigs.
A total of 175 pigs were examined for cysticercosis out of which 9 (5.14%) were found positive for porcine cysticercosis.Sex-wise prevalence of this infection in male and female was recorded as 4.82% (4/83) and 5.43% (5/92), respectively.The infection was higher (5.34%) in the young age group of 1-12 months as compared to the older stocks of 13-24 months of age group (4.54%).Prevalence of porcine cysticercosis was relatively higher in cross bred pigs (5.88%, 6/102) than in the non-descript local breed of pigs (4.11%, 3/73).
The present study reveals that cysticerci infection is prevalent in swine population of Bareilly.Keeping in view the zoonotic importance, strict hygienic measures need to be undertaken for prevention of human infection.28 hooks in two rows, 9 pigs were found positive for from a total of 175 pig carcasses examined (5.14%) (Figure -1).Sex-wise prevalence of infection was recorded as 4.82% (4/83) in male and 5.43% (5/92) in female pigs, respectively (Table -1).The prevalence of infection was higher in the age group of 1-12 months (5.34%) in comparison to the older stocks of 13-24 months of age group (4.54%) (Table-1).However, there was no significant difference in the prevalence of cysticercosis between the sexes of pigs when all animals were included in the analysis.Cross bred pigs showed marginally higher prevalence of 5.88% (6/102) than the non-descriptive local pigs 4.11% (3/73) (Table -1).
The present study was undertaken to record the prevalence of in pigs in Bareilly district of Uttar Pradesh from August, 2012 to July, 2013.An overall prevalence of porcine cysticercosis was recorded as 5.14%.According to the previous reports based on post-mortem examination of pigs occurrence of porcine cysticercosis from Uttar Pradesh was recorded as 2.53 to 9.3 %. [16,17].
Prasad [18] documented a high frequency of cysticercosis (26%) in swine from Mohanlalganj block of Lucknow district in the State of Uttar Pradesh and 40% of infected pigs had cysticerci located in the brain.Prakash [19] studied the occurrence of neurocysticercosis (NCC) in pigs slaughtered at a local abattoir of Bareilly between August, 2005 to March, 2006 and reported the prevalence of NCC in 3% (6/200) of the pigs by gross and histopathological examination.The result of the present study is in agreement with that of these workers.Though, it is not in agreement with the findings of Prasad [18], the study confirms that Bareilly region is endemic for porcine cysticercosis.
Comparatively higher prevalence of porcine cysticercosis (5.34%) in the age group of 1-12 months may not ascribe a scientific basis of higher infectivity in young stocks, but it may be due to the fact that more animals in this age group are slaughtered for consumers' preference and therefore contributed higher in the prevalence data when compared to a slightly low (4.54%) occurrence in 13-24 months of age group.Higher prevalence of porcine cysticercosis in piglets was reported earlier from India [20].Young piglets of 2-4 weeks of age were associated with spread of infection in rural community of Mexico [21].
A marginally higher prevalence of porcine cysticercosis in females (5.43%) recorded in the present study is in agreement with the earlier reports [20][21][22].Since the female animals are reared for longer period to increase the herd size, female pigs have higher possibility of acquiring infection from the contaminated field.Further the natural feeding behaviour of pigs along with the litters around human habitats increases the chance of picking infection [20,21].
The finding of prevalence of porcine cysticercosis more in cross bred animals (5.88%) than nondescript local breeds (4.10%) (Table -3) is in agreement with that of Deka and Gaur [23].However, it may be premature to conclude that non descriptive local breeds may be more resistant to cysticercosis than their crossbreds counterparts found in this region.The finding supports the similar findings of Phiri [24] and Sikasunge [25].

Table - 1
: Prevalence (%) of porcine based on sex, age and breed wise in Bareilly, Northern India.