These animals had two distinct origins: 99 cats (29 males and 70 females) were derived by capture in public areas (feral/stray) and 36 (12 males and 24 females) from shelters.
The overall prevalence of gastrointestinal helminth parasites was 89.6%.
The following parasites, with their respective prevalence in parenthesis, were found: Dipylidium caninum (52.6%), Ancylostoma braziliense (65.9%), Ancylostoma tubaeforme (8.9%), Toxocara cati (25.2%), Toxascaris leonina (11.9%), Physaloptera praeputialis (9.6%).
Concurrent infections with two or more parasites were recorded in 59.5% of the individuals. Of the 121 parasitized cats, 94 were feral/strays and 27 were from shelters.
Among feral/stray cats, 80 were infected with A. braziliense (85%) and 17 of the shelter felids were infected with D. caninum (63%).
Feral/stray cats had higher worm intensities (6411/94-68.2) than shelter cats (992/27-36.7). The helminth parasites most frequently found in feral/stray cats were Ancylostoma braziliense (47.5%) and D. caninum (47%) while in shelter cats, D. caninum was the predominant species (85.2%).
Twenty seven cats (22.3%) had only A. braziliense and 19 (15.7%) were parasitized only with D. caninum.
Among those cats harboring mixed infections A. braziliense and D. caninum were the species more frequently found (P < 0.001).
Source: Labarthe N, Serrão ML, Ferreira AM, Almeida NK, Guerrero J. (2004): A survey of gastrointestinal helminths in cats of the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In: Vet Parasitol. 2004 Aug 13;123(1-2):133-9.
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