Relative Occurrence of Fasciola species in cattle, sheep and goats slaughtered at Dagoretti slaughterhouse in Kenya

Abstract

A cross sectional survey was carried out in Nairobi\'s Dagoretti slaughter house, where routine postmortem meat inspection was done. All liver flukes detected in cattle, sheep and goats were collected and transported to laboratory for analysis to determine the relative occurrence of Fasciola gigantica and Fasciola hepatic in slaughtered cattle, sheep, and goats by observing their size and morphology. The study showed that all the liver flukes collected in Dagoretti were F. gigantica. A total of 1584 cattle, 989sheep and 954 goats originating from five out of the 8 provinces of Kenya were slaughtered at Dagoretti slaughter house, over the study period. 147 (9.3%) cattle, 8 (0.8%) sheep, 4 (0.4%) goats were shown to harbor liver fluke infection. It was concluded that fascioliasis is prevalent in cattle, sheep and goats of Kenya. This may be a cause of great economic losses at slaughter as a result of condemnation of infected livers.

The Kenya Veterinarian Vol. 27 2004: pp. 124-128