A CROSS SECTIONAL INVESTIGATION ON THE OCCURRENCE OF TREMATODE METACERCARIAE IN FRESH WATER CRAB, Sartoriana spinigera IN BANGLADESH

Abstract

Freshwater crabs are distributed throughout the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world that are consumed for the purposes of medical and tonic properties, including the treatment of stomach ailments and physical injuries. Sartoriana spinigera is an important edible freshwater crab species which play an important role as intermediate host of Microphallus indicus. It serves as biological vector for transmission of their infective stages to the final host namely herring gulls, shorebirds,

ducks and rodents. We targeted to investigate the prevalence of lung fluke in Bangladesh because Paragonimus westermani, the lung fluke has been reported from Northeast India including Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Arunachal. During survey, the metacercariae of food borne trematodes were investigated from a total of 261 crabs collected from different geographies of Bangladesh. We could not recover any metacercaria of Paragonimus spp. from the examined crab. The metacercariae of M. indicus were recovered from the crabs screened in this study. The overall prevalence of M. indicus metacercariae was 26% with intensity of 1-63 per crab. The highest (83.33%) prevalence was recorded from Naogaon district, northern part of Bangladesh followed by Sirajgonj (57.5%), Rajshahi (40%), Brahmanbaria (16%), Narsingdi (15%), Faridpur (10%), and Sunamgonj (7%). None of the crabs collected from Rangpur, Thakurgoan, Jashore, Meherpur, Magura, Barguna, Sylhet, Kishorgonj, Cox’sBazar and Bandarban was found to be infected with any microphallid metacearia. Whereas, the highest number of infected crabs were found the in rivers (56%), followed by haor, canal and ditches (5%) and ponds (0%). To the best our knowledge, M. indicus is going to be reported for the first time from Bangladesh. Therefore, proper attention should be paid during consumption of crabs.