Survey for zoonotic liver and intestinal trematode metacercariae in cultured and wild fish in An Giang Province, Vietnam

Although Vietnam has a high risk of fish borne zoonotic trematode(FZT) infections for humans, little information exists on the epidemiology of these infections in the country's fish. Because of the importance of cultured cat-fish and snakehead production in An Giang province, a major production area in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, a survey for FZTs was carried out in randomly selected fish farms between June 2005 and March 2006. For comparison, wild fish from the same area were also surveyed. A total of 852 cultured fish from 4 districts were collected and examined by pepsin digestion to determine their FZT infection status. In Tra catfish, the prevalence of all types of metacercariae was 2.6%, of which the prevalence of Haplorchis pumilio was 0.7%. The overall prevalence of metacercariae in wild fish was 30.6%, of which 10.3% harbored zoonotic species: H. pumilio(2.8%) and Procerovum sp.(5.6%). The prevalence of Opisthorchis metacercariae, which were diagnosed as O. viverrini, was 1.9%. No metacercariae were found in cultured snake head fish, although wild-caught snakehead fish had a FZT prevalence of 10.3%: 5.1% were O. viverrini; 2.6% H. pumilio; and 2.6% were Procerovum sp. These are the first reports of H. pumilio, Procerovum sp., and O. viverrini metacercariae in Vietnamese fish. These results indicate that consumption of improperly prepared fish represents a significant risk of acquiring FZTs in this south Vietnam region.