Circulation of Dirofilaria repens, Setaria tundra, and Onchocercidae species in Hungary during the period 2011–2013

Dirofilaria repens and recently Dirofilaria immitis are known to be endemic in Hungary. Since there isno related research on Dirofilaria carrier mosquito species from Hungary, we conducted a three-yearmosquito surveillance study between 2011 and 2013. During the study period we examined 23,139female mosquitoes with a generic filaria-specific TaqMan PCR assay, and characterized them by sequenc-ing a 500 bp segment of 12S rRNA. An important result of our study was the detection of Setaria tundraand D. repens along with an unidentified Onchocercidae nematode. D. repens is known to be endemic inHungary, however, the detection of S. tundra in all sampling sites throughout the study period indicatesfor the first time the endemicity of this parasite in Hungary. The Onchocercidae sp. nematode showed95% nucleotide identity with previously detected unidentified nematodes from Germany, indicating abroader geographical distribution of this nematode in Europe. D. immitis specific DNA was not detectedamong the screened mosquitoes in this study. Here we report 11 mosquito species as potential vectororganisms for local filarial infections, including Aedes vexans, Ochlerotatus annulipes, Ochlerotatus sticti-cus, Coquillettidia richiardii, Anopheles hyrcanus and Ochlerotatus rusticus. Dirofilaria development unitwas calculated and the potential transmission period was estimated, which ranged between 65 and 113days between sampling seasons. A relatively high infection rate (36.8%) was identified, which is a notablefinding for veterinary and human health professionals. Moreover, the results of our study widen thegroup of possible mosquito vector species for D. repens and S. tundra in Central Europe