Occurence of the Ascaris suum in slaughtered swine in Zona da Mata region, Minas Gerais State

Abstract

Swine are affected by several diseases and worms constitute the main causes of absence of weight gain, competition and decreased feed conversion, discards of slaughter viscera and financial losses. The nematode Ascaris suum remains a major parasitic disease in national livestock pigs. The objective of this work was to evaluate the level of infestation by A. suum in pigs at slaughter age provenient from intensive production systems located in Zona da Mata region, latitude 20º45'45"S, longitude 43º18'10"W, in tropical Southeastern, Brazil. The animals were slaughtered at three slaughterhouses located in the municipality of Piranga, and their gastrointestinal tracts were observed in order to identify the presence of those helminthes. We observed the presence of nematode in animals from 90% of the farms and the total occurrence was 22.4%, media of all the experimental period. It was also observed that, during the experimental period, the occurrence of A. suum in the gastrointestinal tube did not present reduction and the protocol to administer anthelmintic were not efficient to decrease the occurrence this helminthes in proprieties in which they were applied.