The intestines of 20 grey Peruvian foxes (Pseudalopex culpaeus) were examined for the presence of Echinococcus granulosus and other intestinal parasites. Echinococcus granulosus was not found in foxes but Taenia hydatigena and T. multiceps were found in 7 and 4 animals respectively. The grey fox may not be a suitable definitive host for E. granulosus. However, it may act as a sylvatic reservoir of T. hydatigena and T. multiceps in the central Peruvian Andes.

The specific gravity of the eggs of the liver fluke Opisthorchis viverrini was determined using a sucrose gradient centrifugation and found to range from 1.2713 to 1.3043. The peak egg count was located at the sucrose fraction with a specific gravity of 1.2814. An attempt to float eggs in saturated sodium nitrate solution, sp.gr. 1.4, failed. Examination of human stool specimens for O. viverrini eggs by simple flotation in saturated sodium nitrate solution and the formol-ether sedimentation technique revealed that the flotation technique was not as efficient as the sedimentation technique. It was suggested that the flotation techniques were inappropriate for the detection of O. viverrini eggs in faeces or contaminated soil.

Vol. 71, Page 321, Col. 1, Line 10. For ‘bovine-GST’ read ‘Schistosoma japonicum-GST’

Vol. 71, Page 321, Col. 2, Line 22. For ‘anti-bovine-GST’ read ‘anti-Schistosoma japonicum-GST’

Helisoma trivolvis (Pennsylvania strain) snails naturally infected with Echinostoma trivolvis larvae were maintained for 10 months (300 days) at 4°C in artificial spring water to determine the effects of storage on parasite survival. Three of 20 snails were alive at 10 months and when isolated in spring water at 22−24°C released active cercariae. The mean number of cercariae released in 2 h from each stored snail was significantly less than that from freshly collected snails. Infectivity of cercariae from stored hosts to experimentally infected, laboratory-raised Helisoma trivolvis (Colorado strain) snails was significantly less than that of cercariae from fresh hosts based on cyst recoveries in the Colorado strain of H. trivolvis within 24 h p.i. There was no significant difference in the redial number or the number of cercariae per redia in stored versus fresh snails. In conclusion, some reduction in cercarial emergence and decrease in cercarial infectivity to a second intermediate snail host occurred following storage of H. trivolvis naturally infected with E. trivolvis in ASW at 4°C for 10 months.