Parasites, Hosts and Diseases

The Korea Society for Parasitology and Tropical Medicine (대한기생충학·열대의학회)
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Seroprevalence of Dirofilaria immitis in Cats from Liaoning Province, Northeastern China

  • Hou, Honglie (Key Laboratory of Zoonosis, Ministry of Education, College of Veterinary Medicine, Jilin University) ;
  • Cao, Lili (Key Laboratory of Zoonosis, Ministry of Education, College of Veterinary Medicine, Jilin University) ;
  • Ren, Wenzhi (College of Animal Sciences, Jilin University) ;
  • Wang, Dansheng (School of Agriculture Eastern Liaoning University) ;
  • Ding, He (Key Laboratory of Zoonosis, Ministry of Education, College of Veterinary Medicine, Jilin University) ;
  • You, Juan (School of Medicine Eastern Liaoning University) ;
  • Yao, Xinhua (Jilin Academy of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine) ;
  • Dong, Hang (Jilin Academy of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine) ;
  • Guo, Yanbing (Jilin Academy of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine) ;
  • Yuan, Shuxian (Jilin Academy of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine) ;
  • Zhang, Xichen (Key Laboratory of Zoonosis, Ministry of Education, College of Veterinary Medicine, Jilin University) ;
  • Gong, Pengtao (Key Laboratory of Zoonosis, Ministry of Education, College of Veterinary Medicine, Jilin University)
  • Received : 2016.05.22
  • Accepted : 2017.11.25
  • Published : 2017.12.31
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Abstract

The present study was performed to investigate the seroprevalence and risk factors for Dirofilaria immitis infection in cats from Liaoning province, northeastern China. From October 2014 to September 2016, sera of 651 cats, including 364 domestic cats and 287 feral cats (332 females and 319 males) were assessed. They were tested for the presence of D. immitis antigen using SNAP Heartworm RT test kit. In this population, the average prevalence was 4.5%. Age and rearing conditions (feral or domestic) were found to be associated with the prevalence of D. immitis. The prevalence was significantly higher in feral cats compared with domestic cats (8.4% vs 1.4%, P<0.01). There was no significant difference between males and females (4.7% vs 4.2%, P>0.05), but older cats (${\geq}3$ years old) showed a statistically higher prevalence compared with younger cats (<3 years old) in feral populations (16.8 vs 2.4%, P<0.01), while the difference between the age groups was not statistically significant in domestic cats (2.4% vs 0.51%, P>0.05), all these results suggest that outdoor exposure time may be one of the most important factors for D. immitis prevalence in cats. Results reveal that D. immitis are prevalence in domestic and feral cats in northeastern China, which indicates that appropriate preventive measures should be taken to decrease the incidence of feline heartworm disease in Liaoning province, northeastern China.

Keywords

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