Prevalence of Eimeria parasites and sulfachloropyrazine sodium resistance in chicken farms in the Hubei and Henan provinces

Abstract Background：Coccidiosis is an intestinal parasitic disease that causes huge economic losses to the poultry industry globally. At present, the primary control strategy is administration of anticoccidial drugs with feed. However, overuse of anticoccidials, such as sulfachloropyrazine sodium (SC), has resulted in an increase in the emergence of drug resistance.Methods: We aimed to evaluate coccidiosis prevalence and SC resistance in field isolates to provide reasonable guidance on the use of anticoccidial drugs in the Hubei and Henan provinces. We collected 318 fresh fecal samples from 137 chicken farms. We used internal transcribed spacer 1 (ITS1) sequence of ribosomal DNA to identify the species from 94 samples that were collected from different farms and to assess drug resistance.Results: As shown by genus-specific PCR results, the positivity rate of Eimeria was 97.17 % (309/318), and the most common species were E. mitis (66.67%), E. tenella (46.86%), and E. necatrix (41.51%). Animal experiment demonstrated that 25 strains were completely resistant to SC, among which 16 were from Henan and nine were from Hubei. Twenty-four strains were partially resistant, among which 8 and 16 strains were identified from Hubei and Henan, respectively.Conclusions: In summary, these data indicated that chicken coccidia is ubiquitous and SC resistance is widespread, in the Hubei and Henan provinces. The results provide important insights into the control of chicken coccidiosis in this region.