Epidemiology of Trichinella infection in wild boar from Spain and its impact on human health during the period 2006-2019.

Abstract

Trichinellosis is a notifiable zoonotic disease caused by parasitic nematode larvae belonging to genus Trichinella. Domestic pig and wild boar are important hosts within the natural cycle of T. spiralis, being the last one an animal whose populations have experienced an important growth. Therefore, this paper studies the prevalence of Trichinella infection in wild boar in Spain, as well as its relation with hunting bag and its impact on public health during the period 2006-2019. For this purpose, different sources of information were consulted and analyzed depending on autonomous communities of Spain and years. During the fourteen years of study, the number of wild boars hunted and the number of cases of Trichinella infection in them increased (from 172 cases in 2006 to 421 in 2019), although prevalence values remained low as the number of animals analyzed also increased. On the other hand, trichinellosis in humans tends to decrease (from a peak of 107 cases in 2007 to 11 cases in 2019). Nevertheless, both the number of wild boars and humans infected with Trichinella in Spain are among the highest in Europe, and this emphasizes the importance of food safety, sanitary controls of game meat and citizen awareness campaigns, which prevent Trichinella spreads through the human population.