PREVALENCE OF DIROFILARIA IMMITIS IN DOGS IN BULGARIA

A study on the prevalence of the nematode Dirofilaria immitis in dogs in Bulgaria is presented. 1709 domestic and stray dogs from 10 cities in Bulgaria were studied in veterinary clinic “Sveti Georgi” for the period from 1 January 2017 until 30 June 2019. For this purpose, „IDEX SNAP 4Dx Plus TEST“ was used for immunochromatographic detection of Ag in the blood of the patients tested. Of all 1609 animals tested, 223 were antigen positive and they were also tested by the modified Knott method for the presence of microfilariae. 9 of them were negative for presence of microfilaria and 11 of them had a co–invasion with Dirofilaria repens. The total percentage of positive animals compared to all tested animals was 13.04%. The obtained values show that the highest percentage of infested animals was in the Central Southern Region with 17.8% and the lowest is in the Southwestern Region – 5.5%. The largest number of infested dogs was found in Plovdiv region – 20.2%, and the lowest in Sofia region – 4.8%. The distribution for other cities is as follows: Ruse region – 18.7%, Svishtov region – 18.4%, Burgas region – 16.5%, Lovech region – 15.4%, Asenovgrad region – 14.6%, Gotse Delchev region – 11.3%, Dobrich region – 9.3%, and Vidin region – 7.9%.