Research Article Epidemiological Investigations on Cystic Echinococcosis in North-West (Sidi Kacem Province) Morocco: Infection in Ruminants Ikhlass El Berbri, 1 Anne Françoise Petavy, 2 Gerald Umhang, 3 Mohammed Bouslikhane, 1 Ouafaa Fassi Fihri, 1 Franck Boué, 3 and Allal Dakkak 1 1 Department of Pathology and Veterinary Public Health, Institute of Agronomy Veterinary Medicine Hassan II, BP 6202, Rabat-Instituts, Rabat, Morocco 2 Universit´ e Claude Bernard de Lyon, 43 Boulevard du 11 Novembre 1918, 69100 Villeurbanne, France 3 Agence Nationale de S´ ecurit´ e Sanitaire de l’Alimentation, de l’Environnement et du Travail, Laboratoire de la Rage et de la Faune Sauvage, BP 40009, Malzeville, France Correspondence should be addressed to Allal Dakkak; allaldakkak@gmail.com Received 12 September 2014; Revised 8 March 2015; Accepted 20 March 2015 Academic Editor: Xu-Sheng Zhang Copyright © 2015 Ikhlass El Berbri et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Despite alarming statistics on cystic echinococcosis (CE) in humans and the importance of dog and ruminant populations, no epidemiological investigations have been performed on CE in Sidi Kacem Province (North-West of Morocco). A part of large research project was devoted to determine the status of CE in ruminants. his paper reports the results of the investigations carried out in the 10 abattoirs of this region, over four successive years (April 2009–March 2013). A total of 1,302 sheep, 652 head of cattle, and 136 goats were postmortem examined and hydatid cysts were collected and examined. he overall CE prevalence of infection was 42.9% in cattle, 11.0% in sheep, and 1.5% in goats. he prevalence shows signiicant association with age in sheep and cattle; sheep above 3 years and cattle above 5 years are highly infected (64.0% and 72.2%, resp.). Only liver and lungs are found to be infected. Molecular analyses identiied G1, G2, and G3 of E. granulosus sensu stricto in liver and lung samples. Cyst fertility was signiicantly higher in sheep (54.9%) than in cattle (50.3%). hese indings suggest that control measures should target not only sheep but also cattle. 1. Introduction Cystic echinococcosis (CE) is caused by ingestion of ova of the cestode Echinococcus granulosus (Eg) and then formation of the larval stage in diferent organs and tissues [1, 2]. CE is of public health and economic importance not only in areas of endemicity but also in nonendemic countries due to the migration of infected people and livestock exchange which promotes emergence in previously free-disease areas [3]. Unfortunately, numerous reports indicate that CE incidence has increased in various regions of the world [4]. It is endemic to hyperendemic in agricultural countries of Europe, north- ern, eastern, and southern Africa, southern and northern America, Middle East, and Asia [5–9]. CE represents a sub- stantial burden on the human population. Present estimates suggest that it results in the loss of 1–3 million disability- adjusted life years per annum. he annual cost of treating cases and economic losses to the livestock industry probably amounts to US$ 2 billion [10]. CE represents a serious health problem and has an important impact on the economy and social welfare in Morocco. In 2012, a total of 1,627 human surgical cases of CE (5.2 cases per 100,000 inhabitants) were recorded in the whole country [11]. Surgeries are repeated in 3% of cases, and a mortality of 3% was observed. he cost was estimated to be about 1,500C and 3,000C for simple and repeat cases, respec- tively [12]. hus, costs would be 2,440,500C for 1,627 simple cases and 129,600C for repeat cases, giving a total cost of 2,570,100C . he expenses due to further examinations, reduced quality of life following the surgery, morbidity due to Hindawi Publishing Corporation Advances in Epidemiology Volume 2015, Article ID 104025, 9 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/104025