PARASITES IN THE MUSCLES OF SLAUGHTERED CAMELS

Camels nowadays are considered one of the main sources of animal protein in Egypt. It is widely consumed among great numbers of population especially in poor districts; therefore the muscular parasites infesting. camel muscles are of great importance from the public health point of view. Camel cysticercosis not only important from the zoonotic point of view but also due to the economical losses occurring as a result of condemnation of infested muscles. Cysticercus camelii was recorded for the first time in Egypt by Nomani (1920). Wahby (1938) stated that Cysticercus bovis was rarely seen in camels while pellegrini (1945), and Angelotti (1967) recorded Cysticercus dromedarii in 23% and 24.55% of the examined camel carcasses-respectively. Selim et al. (1970) found that less than 10% of camels and cattle imported from Sudan and Somalia were infested with C. dromedarii El-Mossalami and El-Nawawi (1971) found that 0.62% of slaughtered camels were infested with C. dromedarii and also found that higher percentage occurred in male carcasses (0.77%) than females (0.46%). Hamdy et al. (1984) found that only 0.5% of the examined camel carcasses were infested with Cysticercus dromedarii and the infestation rate was higher in aged animals (over 5 years). Hydatidosis is one of the most important zoonotic diseases; Trong (1968) mentioned that camels were highly susceptible to be infested with hydatid cysts than other animals. In South Iran, Afshar et al. (1971) found that 42.8% slaughtered camels were surfering from hydatiodosis, while in Nigeria were 57.5% as recorded by Dada and Belino (1979), it was also 35.2% at the central region of Sudan as recorded by El-Badawi et al. (1979). In Egypt, Moch et al. (1974), Ahmed (1977), Mansour (1979), El-Askalany (1981) and Hamdy et al. (1984) reported that 32.8%, 39.9%, 22.6%, 35.96% and 20.93% of slaughtered camels were infested with hydatid cysts. Sarcosporidiosis is a disease widely distributed among reptiles, birds, mammals, man and even in two fish species (Kalyakin and Zasukhin 1975). The first description of camel sarcosporidiosis was published by Mason (1910); who stated that the cysts were highly present in the muscles of oesophagus, laynx, head, tongue, neck, throat, thigh, leg, heart, diaphragm and tail while liver, spleen, kidneys and portion of involuntary muscles from the gastric compartments and intestine were free from the cysts.