Department of Medical Parasitology and Mycology, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Departamento de Parasitología, Facultad de Farmacia, Universidad de Valencia, Av. Vicente Andrés Estellés s/n, 46100 Burjassot, Valencia, Spain.
Infect Genet Evol. 2018 Aug;62:233-243. doi: 10.1016/j.meegid.2018.04.028. Epub 2018 Apr 24.
Fascioliasis is a highly pathogenic zoonotic disease caused by the liver trematodes Fasciola hepatica and F. gigantica. Within the multidisciplinary initiative against this disease, there is the aim of understanding how this disease reached a worldwide distribution, with important veterinary and medical repercussions, by elucidating the spreading steps followed by the two fasciolids from their paleobiogeograhical origins. Fasciola eggs were detected in paleofaeces of a donkey, probably the present-day endangered Persian onager Equus hemionus onager, found in the Chehrabad salt mine archaeological site, Zanjan province, northwestern Iran. The biological remains dated back to the Sassanid period, 224-651 AD. Egg characteristics allowed for their specific ascription to F. hepatica. The interest of this finding relies on the fact of being the first archaeological finding of Fasciola in Asia and the Near East. Moreover, it allows to reach many conclusions about historical, epidemiological and spreading aspects of the disease. The finding in Chehrabad indicates that, at that time, this fasciolid had already spread through the Zagros mountains eastward from the Fertile Crescent. In that region and in ancient Egypt, livestock domestication played a crucial role in facilitating the disease spread during the postdomestication period. Donkeys appear at present to be usually infected by fasciolids in countries of the Fertile Crescent - Ancient Egypt region or neighbouring that region, with prevalences from low to very high. The high pathogenicity and mortality induced by Fasciola in these equines should be considered as an additional potential factor among the causes of the extinctions of E. h. hemippus in Syria, E. h. hydruntinus in the Anatolia-Balkans area, E. h. onager in the Caucasus and maybe also its decline in Iran. Indeed, Eurasiatic wild asses were present in the region and neighbourhood of the Fertile Crescent when the domestication of the livestock reservoirs of Fasciola began.
片形吸虫病是一种由肝片吸虫和巨型片形吸虫引起的高致病性人畜共患疾病。在针对这种疾病的多学科行动中，人们的目标是通过阐明两种片形吸虫从其古生物地理起源传播的步骤，了解这种疾病是如何在世界范围内传播的，对兽医和医学都有重要影响。在赞詹省西北部伊朗切赫拉巴德盐矿考古遗址发现的一头驴的古粪便中检测到了片形吸虫卵，这头驴可能是现今濒危的波斯野驴 Equus hemionus onager。这些生物遗骸可以追溯到公元 224-651 年的萨珊时期。根据卵的特征，它们被特定地归属于肝片吸虫。这一发现的意义在于它是亚洲和近东地区首次发现片形吸虫。此外，它还可以得出许多关于该疾病历史、流行病学和传播方面的结论。在切赫拉巴德的发现表明，当时这种片形吸虫已经通过扎格罗斯山脉从新月沃地向东传播。在该地区和古埃及，家畜的驯化在促进疾病传播方面发挥了至关重要的作用，这一时期是在驯化之后。在新月沃地-古埃及地区或该地区附近的国家，现在通常发现驴感染了片形吸虫，其流行率从低到非常高。在这些马科动物中，片形吸虫引起的高致病性和高死亡率应该被视为导致叙利亚的 E. h. hemippus、安纳托利亚-巴尔干地区的 E. h. hydruntinus、高加索的 E. h. onager 以及伊朗的 E. h. onager 灭绝的原因之一。事实上，当 Fasciola 的家畜宿主开始被驯化时，亚欧野驴就已经存在于新月沃地及其周边地区。
