SPREAD OF CRYPTOSPORIDIUM SCROFARUM ON PIG FARMS OF THE VOLOGDA REGION OF THE NORTH-WESTERN FEDERAL DISTRICT OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Cryptosporidiosis is an ubiquitous parasitic zoonosis that is a significant problem in veterinary medicine and medicine worldwide. Livestock animals, in particular piglets, are most often susceptible to this disease, however, the species composition of representatives of the genus Cryptosporidium in this species of animals in the Russian Federation has remained unknown to this day. For the first time in the Russian Federation, in the north-west, by the example of the Vologda Region, on pig farms with industrial maintenance technology, as well as on private farms using the latest molecular genetic techniques, namely using highly-efficient sequencing of amplicon libraries of 18S rRNA gene fragments obtained as a result of a nested PCR, we detected parasitism of C. scrofarum in all age groups of examined animals. In total, samples from 400 animals were studied, namely 150 animals kept in industrial pig complexes (30 in each age group) and 250 (50 in each age group) animals kept on farms. The infection rate in the animals kept on pig farms was 34.0% (51/150), and 32.4% (81/250) on farms. Animals that are fattened at the age of 13-24 weeks were most susceptible to infection.