تلخیص
Many snails act as an intermediate host to spread parasitic diseases in humans and animals. Studies on
parasitic infections in freshwater snails are rare in Pakistan. Freshwater snails were collected on
monthly basis from the northeastern areas of Punjab for the period of one year (June 2005 to May
2006). Snails were exposed to light and also crushed to assess the presence of larval Trematodes in
them. Larvae were identified by microscopy. A total of 23,922 snails, comprising eight genera, were
collected from six water bodies and among these, prevalence of the genus Indoplanorbis was found
highest (23.4%), followed by Bulinus (21.5%), Oncomelonia (15.4%), Lymnaea (14.9%), Bellamya
(10.6%), Gyraulus (7.6%), Melanoides (3.8%) and Physa (2.8%). All snails were examined for
Trematode infection, from which, 3541 (14.8%) showed the presence of Trematode larvae. Four
morphologically distinguishable types of Cercariae were identified. Most Trematode infections were
recorded from Lymnaea, which harboured three morphologically different Cercariae. Amphistome
was the commonest types of cercariae (67.07%) recorded, while Xiphidiocercaria cercariae (0.82%)
was the least common. No trematodal cercariae were recovered from Oncomelonia, Bellamya,
Melanoides, Gyralus and Physa. The only intermediate host for Fasciola cecariea were Lymnaea
snails. Infection of these snails with Fasciola cecariae was influenced by temperature and rainfall.
Asma Waheed Qureshi, Akhtar Tanveer, Azhar Maqbool, Sadaf Niaz. (2015) PREVALENCE AND TREMATODE INFECTION OF FRESHWATER SNAILS WITH EMPHASIS ON FASCIOLOSIS IN PUNJAB, PAKISTAN, Asian Journal of Agriculture and Biology, Volume 3, Issue 4.
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