Abstract
Despite the recent sporadic reports of angiostrongyliasis in humans, dogs and wildlife in eastern Australia there has been no systematic study to explore the epidemiology of Angiostrongylus spp. in definitive and intermediate hosts in the region. Little is known about the epidemiology of Angiostrongylus species in the definitive host in southeast Queensland, since the only survey conducted in this region was performed in the late 1960s. In this study, free-living populations of Rattus spp. were sampled and examined for the presence of adult and larval Angiostrongylus in the lungs, and of larvae in faeces. The prevalence of infection with Angiostrongylus spp. was 16.5% in Rattus spp. trapped in urban Brisbane and surrounds. This prevalence is much higher than estimates of earlier studies. This highlights the possible risk of zoonotic infection in children, dogs and wildlife in this region and indicates the necessity for public awareness as well as more detailed epidemiological studies on this parasite in eastern Australia.
Highlights
Angiostrongylus is a genus of nematode belonging to the superfamily Metastrongyloidea
Brisbane is a city located in southeast Queensland, Australia where the average annual temperature ranges between 16.2 C and 26.4 C and the average annual rainfall is approximately 1149.1 mm
SE QLD 1⁄4 Southeast Queensland; N1⁄4North. a Rattus species collected in N QLD did not harbour Angiostrongylus species
Summary
Angiostrongylus is a genus of nematode belonging to the superfamily Metastrongyloidea. The genus contains species characterised by a two-host life cycle that always involves a terrestrial and aquatic mollusc as intermediate host (Carreno and Nadler, 2003). All species of Angiostrongylus live in the arteries of their definitive host and some have tropism to the central nervous system (CNS) in at least at one stage of their lifecycle in the mammal host. Definitive hosts are infected by the ingestion of infected molluscs containing third-stage larvae of the parasite (Bhaibulaya, 1991) or the mucus secreted from infected mollusc (Heyneman and Lim, 1967). It was thought that ingested Angiostrongylus larvae migrate only as far as the brain. A recent study showed that larvae may continue to migrate to the pulmonary circulation and complete their development into adults in human (Lindo et al, 2004; Cui et al, 2011)
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