Updates on morphobiology, epidemiology and molecular characterization of coenurosis in sheep

Taenia multiceps (Leske, 1780) is a taeniid cestode that in its adult stage lives in the small intestine of dogs and other canids. The metacestode, previously known as Coenurus cerebralis, is usually found in the nervous system including brain and spinal cord in sheep and other ruminants. The presence of cysts typically leads to neurological symptoms that in the majority of cases result in the death of the animal from starvation after some weeks. Coenurosis could cause high losses in sheep farms because the disease affects young animals that the farmers grow up each year as replacements of the older individuals. Coenurosis is also a zoonosis with more than 100 human cases described in literature, of which the last in Italy and almost 5 reported in Sardinia. In the last years, the popularity of coenurosis has increased in sheep breedings because of the necessity to operate a differential diagnosis from another neurological disease, scrapie, particularly in atypical cases of coenurosis that could occur also in adult (2-3 years of age) sheep.