Detección de huevos de Toxocara sp. en suelos de las plazas y parques públicos de la zona centro de Barquisimeto, estado Lara

This work is the continuation of a research line started in 2012 and aimed to investigate the zoonotic potential of microorganisms found in public areas; results of soil analysis of public places are presented, this time from south-central area of Barquisimeto, Lara state, in search of Toxocara sp, a potentially zoonotic parasite. This new development was due to the need to know the reality of that area to make comparative inferences based on the previously obtained results, considering that the current socio-economic situation has affected the amount of dogs that are abandoned. As it was mentioned in the first investigation, the most vulnerable age group is children between two and six years old; so the existence of favorable conditions for the presentation of this disease is a public health problem. This time, it was sampled 6 of the existing 12 public places in city downtown's south area, where sampling elements of soil was taken to form a pool of samples in each site; each sampling element parasitologically analyzed showed the existence of Toxocara eggs, representing a 100% of parasitic contamination. These results demonstrate the wide spread of Toxocara, a parasite with zoonotic potential, in this city area; thus, it's justi-fied the continuation of this research in other city areas. Finally, there was a contribution of information materials about zoonotic diseases as much as aware-ness of good practices of pets' ownership to foment civic education that pro-mote quality of life for all