Neglected parasites circulating in Neotropical wild and domestic animals: A feasible threat to animals and humans under One Health perspective

Abstract

Wild animals (WA) have shown to be excellent bioindicators of important zoonotic-relevant pathogens in incrementally anthropogenic environments. As a result of continuous increase of anthropogenic pressure on fragile ecosystems, the contact of human populations with WA is constantly increasing. In an increasingly globalized world, anthropogenic factors such as intensified farming with consequent agro-industrial monocultures, unsustainable natural resources exploitation such as illegal mining, indiscriminate logging, wildlife hunting/trafficking, and wildlife-meat consumption, have strengthened the human-animal interface, thus increasing the risk of bidirectional disease spillover. The WA are indirect indicators of ecosystem health since they are sentinels of some neglected anthropozoonotic ecto- and endoparasitic diseases. Therefore, it is important to know the parasite fauna occurring in Neotropical wildlife, not only to strengthen conservation plans for threatened species, but also for the generation of valuable public health information to avoid potential human infections. Since Neotropics is an extensive and highly heterogeneous region, here we selected the hinge joining key territory of Colombia because remains as a poorly investigated area for wildlife parasitology and is the second most biodiverse country of the globe. Thus, there are scarce and old dated literature reports on various infectious agents that Colombian wildlife may harbour.