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Armadillo Linked to EPM
Reprinted from The Horse News Front,
Issue June 2001
A recent study from the University of Florida found that the
nine banded armadillo is an intermediate host for S.Neurona,
the single celled protozoan that causes EPM. The study was
published in the most recent issue of the International
Journal for Parasitology.
It is known that the opossum is the definitive host for s.
neurona, and that the horse is an aberrant, intermediate
host that cannot pass the the parasite to other horses. In
March, researchers from the US Dept of Ag and The OSU
completed the life cycle in the lab with the domestic cat.
The goal of the University of Florida researchers was to
identify intermediate hosts that allow completion of the
life cycle in nature.
Road killed armadillos are a potential source of food to
opossums, especially in Florida, said Andy Cheadle, a PHD
student whose dissertation research includes this study. At
least 60-70% of armadillos are naturally infected with some
type of Sarcocystis.
The researchers were successfully able to infect on colt via
the armadillo model.
We now have a better understanding of how this parasite is
cycling thru nature, and potentially getting into the horse
said Ellis Greiner, PHD professor of Patholobiology at the
University of FL, and principal investigator in the study.
It also gives us the potential for doing some things in the
lab much more easily. Before the life cycle in the lab was
understood, scientist would collect s.neurona sporocysts
from road killed opossums. Now they can feed naive opossums
infected armadillo meat to obtain the sporocysts passed in
the opossum feces. The sporocysts are used to infect the
horse.
Cheadle suggests that horse owners in armadillo endemic
areas limit the numbers of armadillos and opossums that have
access their farms. The geographic range of the armadillo in
the US doesn't reach to all EPM endemic areas, so this
suggest that there are other natural intermediate hosts of
s.neurona to be discovered A second intermediate horse,
which will fill out the geographic range for North American
will soon be published thru our program.
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