Ida Bagus Komang Ardana

Wudani Leaf Extract (Quisqualis indica Linn) as Traditional Medicine to Control the Incidence of Cattle Worm

It has been known that in Indonesia, disease infestations are still major problems for cattle rearing and production. One of those is Fasciolosis due to infection of Fasciola hepatica, which may cause a total loss of 513 million rupiah per year. The disease causes loss of body weight, untreatable liver damage and reproductive constraints.1 Moreover, it has been reported that worm infections have widely spread in Indonesia. Generally, the prevalence of worm infection in Indonesia is very high, particularly in agricultural landscape, near lakes and areal with high temperature and humidity. In Bali, the high prevalence of Fasciola infestation was noted in the Region of Karangasem (18.29%) and it can be related with seasonal change, poor management and sanitation and low level of education of farmers. Meanwhile, the prevalence of Fasciola hepatica infection recorded in abattoir in Samarinda in 2009 was 55.56%.1 Furthermore, Agustina et al. reported that prevalence of Toxocara vitulorum infection in Bali cattle raised in eastern part of Bali is 39.4%, whereas there were no records reported for Indonesia.2 However, survey conducted in 2014 noted that Paramphistomum sp. were found in almost all cattle slaughtered at Pesanggaran and Darmasaba abattoirs in Bali. The high prevalence of worm infection in cattle may be related to farmer ignorance and their lack of knowledge in preventing the diseases, the unaffordable expensive medicines to control the diseases, and the improper use of medicines that lead to disease resistant. Due to particularly problems related to availability and the expensive price of medicines, alternative solution to control the diseases should be found for the benefit of farmers. It has been known that Indonesia has abundance of herbs that has medical properties and, therefore, research work should be encouraged to explore ABSTRACT