Purpose
The American Fondouk (Fez, Morocco) is a charitable equine hospital that provides veterinary care to working animals. The director of the American Fondouk, Dr. Gigi Kay, has noticed that donkey and mule patients frequenting the hospital are expressing clinical signs of Dictyocaulus arnfieldi infection when, traditionally, this lung parasite is associated with overt clinical signs in horses only. Because decreased productivity from parasitic disease in working animals has detrimental economic implications for their impoverished owners, being able to concretely correlate clinical signs of D. arnfieldi infection with actual infection in non-traditional equine hosts will allow the hospital to treat donkeys and mules with evidence-based medicine, and minimize the financial stress on owners with afflicted animals. The intent of this project is to collect Baermannized fecal samples for microscopic analysis of the presence of L3 larvae, to compare pathogenicity of D. arnfieldi between hosts. Additionally, because of my interest in non-profit and international veterinary medicine, the clinical experience I gain working at the American Fondouk will serve as an invaluable resource in helping me better understand the needs of the communities in which veterinary non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operate.
Introduction
About the American Fondouk
The American Fondouk (associated with the MSPCA) is a full-service, charitable equine hospital located in Fez that provides free veterinary care to working Moroccan animals, especially donkeys, mules, and horses (American Fondouk, 2013). It has grown a reputation intra- and inter-nationally for treating all types of working equids in underprivileged communities. As a non-profit veterina...
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...atherlands: Springer. doi:10.1007/1-4020-3312-5_46
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