Histopathological Study of Different VLM Stages of Toxocara canis Infection in Liver of Rabbits

Abstract

Toxocariasis is a zoonotic parasitic disease caused by Toxocara canis nematode emberyonated egg which is usually transmitted to humans mainly in children via the faecal–oral route, or accidently ingested larvae from uncooked liver or meat of infected ruminants and poultry.  T. canis larvae remains a problem throughout the world because it remains on arrested stage without development to adult stage and causes multisystem disease in the paratenic hosts such as humans, ruminants, poultry and rodents, most infections are asymptomatic and manifests in humans causing the well-characterized syndrome; Visceral Larva Migrans (VLM).  The result of this study indicated detection of T. canis larval stage in liver tissues of infected rabbits at third week post infection. In conclusion the result indicated the possibility of using histopathological examination to diagnosis if there was an infection with T. canis larval stage in paratenic host tissues. It was also recommend that this test could be used to ensure that meat and its products of any local or imported are free from this infection.