An improved method for the extraction and quantification of adult Echinococcus from wildlife definitive hosts

The scraping and counting technique (SCT), with sensitivity values close to 100 %, has been the protocol recommended by global regulatory bodies for the extraction of Echinococcus cestodes from the intestines of wild carnivores. The proposed scraping, filtration and counting technique (SFCT) maintained the sensitivity (p = 0.801, α = 0.05) and increased the efficiency of sample processing. SCT had sensitivity and negative predictive value of 91 and 97 %, respectively, when compared to SFCT. The SFCT significantly decreased processing time (p = 0.0001, α = 0.05) for each sample. The SFCT took an average of 68.5 min less to quantify than SCT, as the SFCT samples consistently contained less debris. The SFCT is therefore appealing for general post-mortem surveillance, to determine if prevalence and intensity of infection are changing in an established region, or if these important parasitic zoonoses are newly established in a region or host species.