Vet World   Vol.15   October-2022  Article-10

Prevalence and resistance to gastrointestinal parasites in goats: A review

Background and Aim: Gastrointestinal parasitism, particularly nematode infection, is a major health issue affecting goats worldwide, resulting in clinical diseases and productivity loss. Prevalent gastrointestinal parasites (GIPs) affecting goats in South Africa are the Strongyloides papillosus, Eimeria spp., and Strongyles, especially the Haemonchus contortus and Trichostrongylus spp. According to the issues discussed in this paper and by other authors, the prevalence and intensity of various GIPs vary with an animal's location, breed, age, sex, and season. Because GIPs easily develop resistance to chemical treatment, selecting and breeding genetically GIP-resistant animals would be a relatively simple and inexpensive strategy for reducing or eliminating the current reliance on chemotherapy. Potential phenotypic indicators for selecting GIP-resistant goats include parasitological, immunological, and pathological phenotypic markers. Synergistic use of these indicators should be encouraged for a more accurate simplified genotype selection of resistant animals. Genes with Mendelian inheritance, particularly those involved in immunoregulatory mechanisms, have been identified in goats. Exploring this knowledge base to develop cost-effective molecular tools that facilitate enhanced genetic improvement programs is a current challenge. Future statistical and biological models should investigate genetic variations within genomic regions and different candidate genes involved in immunoregulatory mechanisms, as well as the identification of single nucleotide polymorphisms known to affect GIP infection levels.

Keywords: immunoglobulin heavy chain, interferon-gamma resistant, interleukin, major histocompatibility complex, resilience, strongyles.

How to cite this article: Mpofu TJ, Nephawe KA, and Mtileni B (2022) Prevalence and resistance to gastrointestinal parasites in goats: A review, Veterinary World, 15(10): 2442–2452.

Received: 08-06-2022  Accepted: 02-09-2022     Published online: 21-10-2022

Corresponding author: Takalani Judas Mpofu   E-mail: mpofutj@tut.ac.za

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2022.2442-2452

Copyright: Mpofu, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.