Prevalence and Molecular Phylogeny of Ascaridia galli in Baladi Chickens in Menouf District, Menoufia, Egypt

Native chickens ascaridiosis (Gallus domesticus) is a disease caused by obligatory intestinal Ascaridia galli (Family: Ascarididae) that causes more economic losses in the chicken industry. The current study was conducted in Menouf district, Menoufia, Egypt from January to December 2022 to determine chicken ascaridiosis’s prevalence and identify the recovered Ascaridia galli. Intestinal samples of 898 randomly selected from Baladi chickens were subjected to parasitological examination. The results revealed that Ascaridia galli worms were detected in 12.5 % (112 out of 898). The prevalence was significantly influenced by the area of the examined chickens but not by the season. Morphological description and molecular characterization of recovered Ascaridia galli were reported in this study to discriminate Ascaridia galli in infected chickens. The PCR of Cox 1 of Ascaridia galli produced specific bands of 533 bp. The sequence has an identity percentage of up to 100% with A. galli from Brazil, Denmark, and USA. The UPGMA phylogenetic tree showed that the sequence of A. galli Cox-1 from Egypt clustered with A. galli sequences from Brazil, Denmark, and Ghana. This study provides data on the prevalence and molecular characterization of A.galli from the Menouf district, Menoufia, Egypt.