Prevalence of bovine cysticercosis of slaughtered animals in south and southeast at state of Goiás, Brazil

— Bovine cysticercosis is a zoonotic disease globally distributed that causes serious problems of public health and economic consequences. This parasitic disease is caused by species Taenia saginata, and the cattle as intermediate hosts, causing bovine cysticercosis, and human definitive host, causing taeniasis. The main symptoms of taeniasis are: malnutrition, intestinal obstruction, abdominal pain, anal itching, among others. In this sense, this study aimed determine prevalence of bovine cysticercosis in animals from southern and southeastern Goiás slaughtered at different slaughterhouses from 2004 to 2008, inspected by State Inspection Service (SIE) and Federal Inspection Service (SIF). For SIE, were surveyed 18 cities in south and southeast of Goiás, in the period 2005 to 2008, which 4927 animals were slaughtered, these 411 were positive for cysticercosis, revealing a prevalence of 8.3%, demonstrating endemicity of region. The inspection was carried out by SIF in the period 2004 to 2007 in 20 towns in south and southeast. From 300,825 slaughtered animals, 1731 were positive, establishing a prevalence of 0.5% for cysticercosis. Despite did not identify prevalence of endemic, some cities, when analyzed, proved to be endemic, such as Santa Cruz (8.5%), Cumari (6.5%) and Orizona (6.2%). According to the findings, appears that south and southeast of Goiás requires implementation of health education programs so that cycle is interrupted.