The present status of Sarcocystis spp. and sarcocystosis in Iran: a literature review.

Sarcocystosis due to Sarcocystis species, is prevalent among livestock in most parts of Iran, the predominant species being S. cruzi, and then followed by S. hirsuta and S. hominis. Studies on the prevalence and geographic distribution pattern of infection in the most common sites of infection have revealed infection rates up to 100% in at least one of the examined tissues in the country. Although human intestinal and gallbladder Sarcocystis infections have been reported, nothing is known about muscular Sarcocystis infection in human in Iran. The main aim of this review is to estimate the prevalence of Sarcocystis infections in ruminants, dogs, cats, and poultry as well as humans based on the studies conducted in Iran from November 1974 to October 2020. PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Science Direct, and Google Scholar, as well as one Persian electronic databases (SID) were searched systematically from November 1974 to October 2020. Publication searches were performed by various combinations of the following terms: "sarcocystosis" or "Sarcocystis spp." and "Iran". The reference list of selected articles was also manually screened, and the searching process resulted in the selection of 56 studies. The abstracts of the papers published at the congresses were not reviewed.