The epidemiology of Echinococcus granulosus in Great Britain

Abstract

Twenty-five years ago Williams and Sweatman suggested that in Great Britain there are two subspecies of Echinococcus granulosus—E. granulosus granulosus and E. granulosus equinus. Echinococcus granulosus granulosus does not mature either in foxes or in horses: E. granulosus equinus will mature in either. The prepatent period of E. granulosus granulosus in the definitive host is about 42 days while that of E. granulosus equinus is about 70 days. Each subspecies has a characteristic morphology.

More recently, in the course of seven experiments, dogs, red foxes (Vulpes vulpes crucigera), arctic foxes (Alopex lagopus), badgers (Meles meles), domestic ferrets and domestic cats have been infected with protoscoleces derived from hydatid cysts of human, equine and ovine hosts from different regions of England and Wales. Transmissions to horses and sheep were always succeeded by the development of viable hydatid cysts; transmissions to dogs and foxes, by the development of gravid adults. The prepatent period in both dogs and foxes was invariably about 70 days (or longer) and the morphology of all the adult parasites in these definitive hosts was characteristic of E. granulosus equinus.

All the evidence derived from these experiments supports the view that there is, in Great Britain, but one subspecies of E. granulosus. That one subspecies is E. granulosus equinus. It infects dogs, red foxes, arctic foxes (experimentally), cats (experimentally), humans, sheep, goats, horses, donkeys, pigs, cattle, roe deer and reindeer (in Scotland). Attempts to transmit E. granulosus to badgers and domestic ferrets were unsuccessful. Of 123 cats infected with protoscoleces of horse origin, one gravid adult parasite was recovered from one animal.