prevalence of sarcocystis infection in slaughtered ruminants at rasht abattoir: a comparative study of digestive and macroscopic methods

Detecting zoonotic diseases in slaughterhouse inspections is essential for controlling their transmission to humans. sarcocystis, a widespread parasitic infection, presents serious public health challenges and causes significant economic losses by necessitating the condemnation of infected livestock carcasses. this study aimed to determine the prevalence of sarcocystis species infections in slaughtered ruminants (cattle, sheep, and goats) at the rasht abattoir, iran, using the digestive method. a total of 606 samples (tongue, esophagus, heart, diaphragm and, skeletal muscle (gluteal muscle)) were examined visually for the presence of macrocysts at the rasht industrial slaughterhouse. each animal was categorized based on age, sex, and infected muscle groups. all samples were cut into 2-3 mm pieces and thoroughly observed for potential macrocysts. subsequently, the samples were analyzed using the digestive method. the results showed that 9.5% of goats, 10% of sheep, and 11% of cattle were infected with macrocysts. microscopic examination revealed microcyst infection in 23.2% of goats, 21.9% of sheep, and 20.6% of cattle. although the infection rate did not exhibit a statistically significant correlation with age, a higher prevalence of infection was observed in older animals. (p<0.05). however, infection rates were independent of sex, with no significant difference between males and females (p>0.05).  the highest infection rates were observed in the esophageal tissue and diaphragm, at 21% and 17.3%, respectively, while the lowest infection rate was found in the heart tissue, at 9.9%.  our study demonstrated that the digestive method is one of the most useful and accurate techniques for identifying infected samples, as evidenced by our likelihood ratio assessment.