Elhariri M, Hamza D, Elhelw R and Refai M
Lovebirds and Cockatiels Risk Reservoir of Cryptococcus neoformans, a Potential Hazard to Human Health
Lovebirds and cockatiels are potential carriers and/or transmitters of zoonotic diseases. Some of them could have an important impact for human health, In Egypt, the role of these birds in dispersing C. neoformans is not well documented, which evoked a high need to investigate the environmental ecology of this fungus in order to establish surveillance programs and applying the preventive measures for this pathogen infection. The C. neoformans prevalence and role of pet birds in spreading this fungal pathogen in Egypt was illustrated in this study. Two hundred Cockatiels and lovebirds excreta were collected from captive birds. The recovered isolates of C. neoformans species were identified by molecular identification using capsular gene specific primer CAP64. The subtyping of isolates was performed by multiplex PCR using CNa-70S/A -CNa-49S/A. Four isolates (3 and 1) from lovebirds & Cockatiels respectively were subjected to sequence analysis of Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) regions. Alternatively the fungal isolates were analyzed by PCR fingerprinting with uniplex PCR amplification using an oligonucleotide (GTC)5. From this study it was concluded that, the excreta of these birds can play a role as a risk reservoir of C. neoformans in domestic and public environments and enhance their zoonotic importance to human.
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