educational ASSESSMENT OF THE PREVALENCE OF FASCIOLIASIS AMONG GOATS SLAUGHTERED IN SELECTED ABATTOIRS IN LOKOJA METROPOLIS

Abstract

Fascioliasis is a zoonotic disease of public health importance that affects man and farm animals. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of Fasciola infection among goats that were slaughtered within Lokoja metropolis. In the course of this research, fresh faecal samples and 150 gallbladders were collected from slaughtered animals, were also collected from three selected abattoirs in Lokoja, and were analyzed using standard parasitological technique. Upon the parasitological analysis of the fecal samples, 13.3% of the samples were positive for fasciola infection. There was significant difference in the prevalence of parasites among the three study areas as shown in Table). The prevalence rate in location C abattoir (9.3%) was statistically higher than that of location A abattoir (3.3%), while location B had the least prevalence of (0.7%). Overall, a prevalence of 11.3% was detected in gallbladder samples. The prevalence of infection was significantly different within the three study areas. Statistically, location A abattoir had the highest prevalence of ova in gallbladder specimens (6.0%) followed by location C abattoir (4.0%) and location B abattoir with (1.3%) prevalence. Thus, this study showed a high prevalence of facioliasis, and this could be attributed to lack of proper awareness on the need to keep clean sanitary environment around our houses and farmsteads to safeguard the health of the animals during rearing.