Blastocystis is a chromist that can be found in the intestinal tract of animals and humans, and is currently considered an emerging pathogen with zoonotic potential. The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of three in vitro media culture which are considered appropriate for the development of Blastocystis: Jones, Pavlova and Boeck-Drbohlav modified (BDM). It was used 54 stool samples from Blastocystis positive pigs diagnosed by the spontaneous sedimentation technique. The number of microorganisms inoculated was divided in three categories: low, intermediate and high. Each sample was cultivated for duplicate in the three media and after 72 hours of incubation the pathogens were counted using the Neubauer chamber. Results showed that the Jones media was the more efficient, followed by Pavlova and BDM; moreover, better results were obtained when the level of microorganisms was low...

The aim of this study was to develop a stochastic simulation model to estimate implementation costs of porcine cysticercosis (CP) control programmes. Three scenarios were proposed: (1) use of a commercial recombinant vaccine (RV), (2) mixed use of RV plus oxfendazole (OFZ), and (3) dosing with OFZ. To establish the efficacy of the interventions, the probabilities of elimination of cysticercosis were obtained through the “cystiSim” agent-based model. The cost model was developed in R with 10 000 iterations. It was found that the mixed scenario offered a probability of 0.987 eliminating cysticercosis in 6.5 years and with an annual cost of S/. 335,208 (95% CI: S/ 309,922 – 368,698) (1 US$ = S/. 3.75). In contrast, the dosing strategy with OFZ proved to be less expensive with S/. 260,518 (95% CI: S/ 237,559 – 293,704) per year and a probability of elimination of 0.951...

Blastocystis is a chromist that can be found in the intestinal tract of animals and humans, and is currently considered an emerging pathogen with zoonotic potential. The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of three in vitro media culture which are considered appropriate for the development of Blastocystis: Jones, Pavlova and Boeck-Drbohlav modified (BDM). It was used 54 stool samples from Blastocystis positive pigs diagnosed by the spontaneous sedimentation technique. The number of microorganisms inoculated was divided in three categories: low, intermediate and high. Each sample was cultivated for duplicate in the three media and after 72 hours of incubation the pathogens were counted using the Neubauer chamber. Results showed that the Jones media was the more efficient, followed by Pavlova and BDM; moreover, better results were obtained when the level of microorganisms was low...