Identification of spatial clusters from seized material at slaughterhouses as a strategy of health intervention in cattle in the South of Chile.
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1
Austral University of Chile, Chile
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2
Other, Chile
Introduction: For the production and commercialization of beef, it is required to know which are the main causes of seizures and how they are distributed in the geographical areas. With the analysis of the spatial information of pathologies, it will be possible to carry out a strategic approach of health intervention for the control of the pathologies that affect the cattle of a geographical area. Since a spatial cluster or spatial conglomerate refers to an increase or excess of cases in specific locations or an unusual pattern in a study area, it allows intervention under a risk criterion. The objective of the study was to perform epidemiological analysis of the causes of seizures of bovine carcasses and organs in slaughterhouses of the Los Lagos región in Southern Chile, linked to the geographical areas of origin.
Material and Methods: The information of the cattle slaughtering plants of the Los Lagos region (n = 3) was analyzed between 2013 and 2017. The volume of the accumulated period of 5 years of slaughter was 962,456 bovines. Animals came from 2,845 geo-referenced farms by the Agriculture and Livestock Service (SAG). The data were analyzed, first by organ, the causes of seizures and by geographical distribution and the presence of spatial clusters of the main pathologies, based on the Poisson model. R, SatScanTM and Arc view 3.8 softwares were used.
Results: The origin of the slaughtered animals was from the central zone of Chile, Valparaíso region to the southern end of Patagonia. The organs with most sized were the livers (n = 837,657 units 87.0%), followed by the kidneys (n = 1.124.7815 units, 8.4%) and stomachs (n = 106,054 units 11.0%). Marginally, heart, heads and channels were confiscated. The most frequent causes of seizures were for parasitic including dystomatosis, hydatidosis, cysticercosis, sarcosporidiosis and linguatulosis.
Distomatosis was the main cause of liver seizures, reaching frequencies of 69.9% in the different slaughter establishments nationwide (435,784 affected animals). The distomatosis is produced by the fluke Fasciola hepatica, whose biological cycle is indirect involving molluscs as intermediate hosts and herbivores as definitive hosts. The species with the greatest detection of findings by distomatosis is the bovine species, with 98% of the affected animals, which is equivalent to a rate of 484 infected cattle per 1,000 slauthers animals. This parasite is a current problem in Chile, so efforts to control it should be focused on restricting contact between the agent and the animals, avoiding the stagnation of water that is fundamental to the snail's habitat, as well as advises to avoid the simultaneous use of pastures by bovines and sheep. In addition to the use of antiparasitic agents that act both in the juvenile stages of the parasite as well as in the adult stages. A wide geographical extension was found in both the central and southern areas 8 space clusters were identified.
The second cause of liver seizures was hydatidosis, which is a parasitic disease caused by the cestode Echinococcus granulosus. It has an indirect biological cycle where dogs and wild canids participate as definitive hosts and ruminants as intermediate hosts. The intermediate host becomes infected by ingesting the eggs in the pastures that were eliminated by the faeces of the definitive host. Seizures for hydatidosis were made in 9 regions of the country from the Metropolitan region to Patagonia, distributed in 71 areas of these regions. The herds that submitted seizures were 999, corresponding to 35.1% of the herds that slaughtered animals in the slaughtering plants of the study. The areas with higher percentages (9.8% to 38.4%) of seizures due to hydatidosis and 20 space clusters were identified .
The cysticercosis is the third pathology that causes seizures, being the species with more findings the sheep with 91.3% of the cases which is equivalent to 15,957 animals. Second, the animal species that is also affected by this parasitism is the bovine with 1,293 animals with findings of cysticercosis. With respect to the national geographic distribution of this disease, the Magallanes region is the one that concentrates the largest number of animals with findings to this pathology (70.1%), followed by the Los Lagos region (19.4%) and the region of Aysén (4.5%). It is important to highlight at this point that the findings by cysticercosis that are handled nationally in slaughtering plants, considers the seizures either by Cysticercus bovis as well as the seizure by Cysticercus ovis and Cysticercus tenuicollis (SAG, 2017), that is why the greatest presence of findings in the species sheep. The spatial distribution of seizures by bovine cysticercosis is observed in the 8th space cluster.
Conclusions: According to the spatial analysis of the information studied, it was possible to determine that the different diseases that generate seizures at slaughterhouse level are distributed in different areas of the country, identifying areas of greater risk of disease. Of the parasitoses identified that generated the greatest impact in the seizures, are those associated with the presence of dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) such as hydatidosis, sarcosporidiosis acting as definitive hosts within the biological cycles.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgement to the Agriculture and Livestock Service SAG, for the financing of the project.
References
Keywords:
seized material cluster,,
health intervention,,
cattle parasitic cluster,
Chile cluster,
strategy of health intervention,
Spatial cluster detection
Conference:
GeoVet 2019. Novel spatio-temporal approaches in the era of Big Data, Davis, United States, 8 Oct - 10 Oct, 2019.
Presentation Type:
Regular oral presentation
Topic:
Operational GIS tools for policy-makers, planners, researchers
Citation:
Rosenfeld
C,
Baez
A,
Muñoz
P,
Paredes
E,
Tamayo
R,
Bustamante
E,
Loyola
M and
Llanten
J
(2019). Identification of spatial clusters from seized material at slaughterhouses as a strategy of health intervention in cattle in the South of Chile..
Front. Vet. Sci.
Conference Abstract:
GeoVet 2019. Novel spatio-temporal approaches in the era of Big Data.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fvets.2019.05.00080
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Received:
11 Jun 2019;
Published Online:
27 Sep 2019.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Carla Rosenfeld, Austral University of Chile, Valdivia, Chile, CROSENFE@UACH.CL
Mr. Edgardo Bustamante, Other, Puerto Montt, Chile, edgardo.bustamante@sag.gob.cl