| dc.description.abstract | Protozoa are unicellular parasites with high veterinary-medical importance, as
they can cause mild to severe diseases with multiorgan involvement in pets,
livestock and wild-living animals, some of them having zoonotic potential. They
can be acquired through a fecal-oral route directly or with contaminated food
or water. In addition, vector-borne protozoa are transmitted by blood-sucking
arthropods. In recent decades, with the spread of serodiagnostic and molecular
biological methods, the identification of species has become more effective, and
this has also induced changes in the field of veterinary parasitology. Since then,
the number of protozoa newly diagnosed in both farm and companion animals
has increased in Hungary, including Neospora caninum, Besnoitia besnoiti, several
Sarcocystis, Babesia and Theileria species, Leishmania infantum, Hepatozoon felis,
Hepatozoon canis, Cytauxzoon europeaus and different trichomonads. Currently,
no practical summary is available in Hungary on medicines that can be used to
treat or to prevent infections caused by unicellular parasites. Thus, this review
tries to fill this gap and includes the most important antiprotozoal drugs, their
doses and the available products. Even though unicellular parasites can cause
serious disease and their treatment is challenging, there are still a limited number
of drugs available for clinical use. In addition, drug resistance is increasing in the
case of antiprotozoal drugs, and effective vaccines have limited availability for
veterinary use. Therefore, more emphasis should be placed on prevention, e.g., to
decrease the chances of infection by vector-borne protozoa by using repellents or
by reducing the number of blood-sucking arthropod vectors in the environment
of pet and livestock animals. | en_US |
