Investigation of Contamination Rate of ‎Sarcocyst in Urmia Slaughtered buffalo ‎Abattoir by Digestive Method and ‎Comparing the found results with ‎Abattoir Statistics

Sarcocystis is a intracellular parasitic protozoan that can cause gastrointestinal disorders in patients and huge financial losses in the livestock industry. This study was performed to determine the prevalence of Sarcocystis infection in slaughter buffaloes in Urmia slaughterhouse, Iran. This study was observed during a six-month period (October to March 2016) at 10-day intervals by referring to Urmia slaughterhouse and preparing carcasses of various tissues including tongue, esophagus, heart, diaphragm, thigh, and arm for the presence of rice grain cysts. During the present study, a total of 120 buffalo carcasses were examined macroscopically. For microscopic examination by digestion method, 100 g of each animal tissue was packed and transferred to the parasitology laboratory of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Urmia Azad University. According to the results, no macrocysts were observed in buffaloes. Microscopic examination showed a moderate frequency of infection with Sarcocystis microcysts that 16.67% of the studied buffaloes were found to be positive for infection. Data analysis showed that there was a statistically significant difference between the rate of infection in different age groups and the rate of infection increased with age (p <0.05), while the rate of infection was gender independent and there was no significant difference between the rate of infection of different sexes (p>0.05). There was also a statistically significant difference between the level of infection in different muscles (p<0.05). All skeletal and esophageal muscles had microcysts and then microcysts were observed in the diaphragm, tongue, and heart muscles. our study showed that digestion is one of the most useful and accurate methods available to identify infected samples.