title: Is Opisthorchis viverrini an avian liver fluke?
abstract: Recently, in the Journal of Helminthology (May 2013), Dao et al. reported that Opisthorchis viverrini-like flukes were found in the bile duct of domestic ducks in Vietnam. They stated that this is the first record of Opisthorchis sp. in birds in Vietnam. However, three Opisthorchis species--O. cheelis, O. longissimus and O. parageminus--in birds in Vietnam were described by Le in 2000. Amongst these, O. parageminus was first reported, by Oshmarin in 1970, as a new Opisthorchis species found in domestic ducks (Anas platyrhynchos) in Vietnam. Morphologially O. viverrini-like flukes described by Dao et al. are much more similar to O. parageminus than to O. viverrini. The phylogenetic trees of internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) and cytochrome oxidase 1 (CO1) gene sequences also showed that the O. viverrini-like liver flukes from domestic ducks were closer to O. lobatus than to O. viverrini. Therefore, O. viverrini-like liver flukes reported by Dao et al. (2013) are most likely to be O. parageminus.
authors.affiliation: Research Affairs, Faculty of Medicine, Khon Kaen University,Khon Kaen,Thailand.
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nawa
authors.affiliation: Department of Parasitology,Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology,Hanoi,Vietnam.
authors.forename: P N
authors.initials: PN
authors.lastname: Doanh
authors.affiliation: Department of Helminthology,Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University,Bangkok,Thailand.
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Thaenkham
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004372:Ducks; D008099:Liver / Q000469:parasitology*; D009889:Opisthorchiasis / Q000469:parasitology / Q000662:veterinary*; D009891:Opisthorchis / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification* / Q000502:physiology; D010802:Phylogeny; D011201:Poultry Diseases / Q000469:parasitology*; D014744:Vietnam