engleski

Trichinellosis in Croatia: past, present and future

The countries of southeastern Europe including Croatia in the past decades has experienced a re - emergence of trichinellosis. Due to the war and post war conditions the prevalence of trichinellosis dramatically increased in the last ten years in Croatia too. The most important cause of frequent outbreaks was the breakdown of the food safety and a deficient veterinary control. Continuous war conflicts resulted in severe economic and demographic changes as a big number of refugees that migrated to other parts of the country. The refugees usually migrated with pigs. Uncontrolled conditions of slaughter and disposal of infected carcasses provoked an increase of the prevalence of trichinellosis in swine especially in endemic villages. Due to a big threat for the human population as enormous economic loss, a disease control programme was implemented in 2000. The programme consisted of the mandatory trichinelloscopy for pigs slaughtered under all conditions, prompt disposal of infected carcasses, large scale education of veterinarians and farmers, large scale rodent control, and continuous serological monitoring of pigs. In 2001 The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry promulgated a decree of mandatory replacement of all pigs from incriminated farms. All infected pigs were slaughtered and disposed under strict control after what the number of positive pigs substantially decreased. As a result of severe control measures the prevalence decreased from 0.52 % in 1998. to 0, 02 % in 2005. Further decline will be certainly achieved once all pigs will be controlled with mandatory peptic digestion of at least 5 grams of muscle sample. The method with higher sensitivity will exclude all animals even infected with very small number of larvae

Trichinellosis; past; control programme; current situation; future

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