Investigation on Trichinella spp. in Swine in Eastern Bolivia

In Bolivia trichinellosis in swine was documented for the first time in 1993 in a small abattoir of a rural community in the Bolivian Altiplano, with the pooled digestion method. In 1996 a second survey was performed using serological tests to detect antibodies against Trichinella spiralis in pigs in the departments of Santa Cruz and Chiuquisaca. No further investigations have been performed since then. Between July and September 2011, a total of 65 swine muscular samples, 50 from a slaughter house in Santa Cruz and 15 from the slaughter house of Camiri (eastern Bolivia) were examined to detect Trichinella using the artificial digestion method. Furthermore a serological survey on a total of 255 serum, collected in 2007 from the community of Bartolo (Hernando Siles province, Department of Chuquisaca), Monteagudo, and Chuquisaca (Department of Chuquisaca) was performed using two commercial indirect ELISA kits that use excretory/secretory antigens (ESA) of Trichinella spp. Six out 255 resulted positive with an overall seroprevalence of 2.3%. None of the 65 pig muscular samples analyzed with artificial digestion tested positive for the presence of Trichinella larvae. These investigations indicate that trichinellosis is present throughout Bolivia and is a potentially important public health problem