Open Veterinary Journal, (2025), Vol. 15(10): 5108-5115

Research Article

10.5455/OVJ.2025.v15.i10.28

Human gut parasitic pathogens carried by the housefly (Musca domestica L): A single health approach

Wali Khan^1*, Majed H. Wakid^2,3, Uzair Ahmad¹, Mashael Abdullah aldamegh⁴, Habib Ur Rahman⁵, Patricio De Los Rios Escalante^6,7 and Yousef Abdal Jalil Fadladdin⁸

¹Laboratory of Parasitology, Department of Zoology, University of Malakand, Lower Dir, Pakistan

²Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

³Special Infectious Agents Unit, King Fahd Medical Research Center, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

⁴Department of Biology, College of Science, Majmaah University, Al-Majmaah, Saudi Arabia

⁵Department of Pediatrics, Saidu Teaching Hospital, Saidu Medical College, Swat, Pakistan

⁶Universidad Catolica de Temuco, Facultad de Recursos Naturales, Departmento de Ciancias Biologicas Quimicas Casella 15-D, Temuco, Chile

⁷Núcleo de Estudios Ambientales UC Temuco, Casilla, Temuco, Chile

⁸Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

*Corresponding Author: Wali Khan. Laboratory of Parasitology, Department of Zoology, University of Malakand, Lower Dir, Pakistan, Email: walikhan [at] uom.edu.pk

Submitted: 01/02/2025 Revised: 12/08/2025 Accepted: 12/08/2025 Published: 31/10/2025

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Abstract

Background: Musca domestica (L) is a potential carrier of pathogenic parasites in synanthropic habitats.

Aim: This study was conducted to investigate the prevalence of intestinal parasites carried by houseflies, collected from different sites in districts Dir (Lower) and Malakand, Pakistan.

Methods: During the study, 672 houseflies were randomly caught with insect sweep nets from abattoirs, garbage piles, public latrines, vegetable shops, and hotels located in both urban and rural areas of the districts.

Results: A total of 672 common house flies were examined. Of the examined flies, 33.3% (n=224) were found in filth with different species of parasites. Of the filthy flies, 30.9% (n=208) were infected with a single species of parasites, and 2.38% (n=16) were infected with multiple species of parasites. Seven different parasite species were isolated from the surface body parts and guts of the captured houseflies. Ascaris lumbricoides was isolated most (30.1%), followed by Toxocara canis (26.8%), hookworm (12.95%), Hymenolepis nana (10.3%), Giardia lamblia (9.82%), Taenia sp. (7.14%), and Trichuris trichiura (3.13%), in that order (p < 0.0001).

The highest number of houseflies (n=156) was recorded in abattoirs, whereas the highest rate of prevalence, 43%, was noted in public latrines. Statistical representation revealed that the p value is significant only for the public latrines of the lower dir district (p < 0.05).

Conclusion: This study showed that houseflies are potential transmitters of parasitic infection to human hosts and could significantly contribute to the spread of foodborne parasitic diseases.

Keywords: Parasitic infection, Public health, House flies, Zoonotic importance, Synanthropic habitats.

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Introduction

Musca domestica (the common house flies) plays a vital role in transmitting parasitic diseases to humans because of its filthy nature. Common house flies have a negative psychological impact as they cause nuisances and signify unhygienic conditions. Houseflies are known to spread diseases because they feed freely on human food and filthy matters. Houseflies pick up pathogenic microorganisms while crawling and feeding on contaminated materials and transfer them to food and drinks, leading to food- and water-borne diseases, especially in infants and children.

The house flies are the most prevalent of all flies, accounting for about 90% of all flies in human habitations worldwide (Nmorsi et al., 2006). Houseflies in tropical areas prefer warm places and are more active during the day at temperatures between 10°C and 26.5°C, but are inactive below 7.2°C and could die at extreme temperatures below 0°C or above 44.4°C (Ahmadu et al., 2016). Houseflies are associated with decomposing materials and areas with poor environmental hygiene, such as livestock farms, domestic waste dumps, and latrines, where the accumulation of organic material provides suitable breeding conditions. Flies feed on a wide variety of food substances, including human food, garbage, and fecal materials. Heaps of feces are the prime breeding sites for houseflies (Keiding, 1986; WHO, 1991).

Synanthropic house flies are linked to the transmission of various pathogens of public health importance (Oghale et al., 2013). The antennae of non-biting flies, such as M. domestica, have special sensory cells that can detect strong compounds like ammonia and carbon dioxide emitted from fecal and other decomposing organic materials (Tan et al., 1997). The hairy bodies, spongy mouth parts, and sticky foot-pads of houseflies make it easier for them to transmit disease-causing organisms from infected materials to human food and water, especially in open areas (El-Sherbini and ­El-Sherbini, 2011). Houseflies have been incriminated in the mechanical transmission of helminth eggs, such as Ascaris, Trichuris, Enterobius, Toxocara, Strongyloides, Taenia, Hymenolepis, Dipylidium, Diphyllobothrium species, protozoan cysts, and trophozoites (Oghale et al., 2013; Mullen and Durden, 2019).

Gastrointestinal helminths and protozoa are the leading cause of gastroenteritis, with significant morbidity and mortality, especially in low-income countries (Alqarni et al., 2023; Al-Refai and Wakid, 2024). Otranto et al. (2009) found that house flies-borne infections affect public health mainly in areas where control and prevention strategies are often impaired by socioeconomic constraints. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that nearly two-thirds of the world’s population was infected with intestinal parasites, with Giardia lamblia and Ascaris lumbricoides being the most concern (WHO, 2005; Harhay et al., 2010). Non-biting synanthropic flies are also carriers of pathogenic bacteria (Sukontason et al., 2007; Butler et al., 2010; Fasanella et al., 2010) and viruses (Sawabe et al., 2006).

Several studies have investigated intestinal parasitic infection among humans in the Malakand region, Pakistan (Nisa et al., 2011; Khan et al., 2012, 2015; Khan et al., 2017a, 2017b; Khan, 2018; Khan et al., 2018; Arshad et al., 2019; Khan et al., 2019a, 2019b; Khan et al., 2020; Iqbal et al., 2021; Khan et al., 2021; Rahman et al., 2021; Ulhaq et al., 2021; Khan et al., 2022; Rahman et al., 2022; Khan et al., 2023; Subhan et al., 2023). However, studies on the role of houseflies as mechanical transport hosts of gastrointestinal parasites in Pakistan is lacking. The current study was therefore designed to understand the role of houseflies as carriers of human intestinal parasites in district Dir (lower) and Malakand, Pakistan.

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Materials and Methods

Study area and sites

Based on poor water management facilities, lack of sanitary practices, improper disposal of waste materials, and variation in feeding behavior, the study sites were chosen, namely abattoirs, garbage piles, public latrines, vegetable shops, and hotels. These sites were chosen from the rural and urban areas of district Dir (Lower) and district Malakand, located in the north western part of Pakistan. District Lower Dir lies 34° 22′ and 35° 50’ N and 71° 02′ and 72°30′ E. The total area is 1,582 km² and inhabited by 1,435,917 individuals with a population density of 908/ km². The Malakand district lies between 32°22’ to 34°42’ N and 71°37’ to 72° 14’ E (meter above sea level?). The total area of the Malakand district is 952 km², and it is populated by 720,295 people, with a population density of 596 people per km². In district Lower Dir, the annual average maximum and minimum temperatures ranged from 29°C and 12°C. The annual rainfall varies from 600 to 1,100 mm. Snowfall rarely occurs on the tops of some mountains in district of lower Dir, Pakistan. In district Malakand, the climate is moderately hot in summer and cold in winter. The months of June to August are the hottest months of the year. The maximum temperature during summer is 41°C and the minimum is 2°C in winter (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Mape showing the urban areas of the Malakand Division, KP, Pakistan.

Collection of houseflies

Six hundred and seventy two adult M. domestica (the common house flies) were caught with a fine sweep net from five synanthropic sites in both districts. The flies were collected daily between 9 and 12 pm, from the month of March to July 2017. The collected houseflies were killed in normal-sized jam bottles containing 10% cotton-soaked formalin, labeled with the container, and transported to the Parasitology laboratory, Department of Zoology, University of Malakand for further studies.

Sample processing

Approximately 10 ml of 10% formal saline was added to each universal bottle containing the houseflies. The houseflies were individually dissected with fine forceps, and the gut contents were smeared on a glass slide. A drop of Lugol’s iodine was added for the enhancement of morphological features of any detected stage of the parasites (Alqarni et al., 2022; Bahwaireth and Wakid, 2022). These were examined under a microscope (Labo-Med USA, using 10× and 40× objective lenses to report the presence of helminth eggs and protozoan cysts, respectively. Identification of the parasites was done by the keys provided by WHO (2019).

Statistical analysis and data visualization

The data were analyzed using the chi-square test with Graph Pad Version 5, and the p-value was considered significant when less than 0.05 at 95% CI. Further for data visualization and more readability, the methods of Yin and Ivanović (2024) and Yin et al. (2024 a, 2024b) were applied.

Ethical approval

Not needed for this study.

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Results

The results of the research incriminated M. domestica as a carrier of pathogenic parasites of public health importance. All 672 houseflies were identified as M. domestica. The highest occurrence of houseflies was recorded in abattoirs (n=156), accounting for 23.21% while the least (n=116) was recorded in vegetable shops at 17.2% of the total houseflies population. Two hundred twenty-four (n=224) houseflies had human intestinal parasites isolated from their gut contents. Flies from public latrines had the highest prevalence of parasites (43%), whereas holes had the lowest prevalence (20.4%), as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Number of M. domestica species per site sampled from the districts investigated.

Seven different types of parasites in single or multiple species of houseflies were identified. Ascaris lumbricoides was the most recovered parasite with a prevalence rate of 30.1%, followed by Toxocara canis 26.8%, hookworm 12.95%, Hymenolepis nana 10.70%, G. lamblia 9.82%, Taenia sp. 7.14%, and Trichuris trichiura 3.13%, as listed in Table 2 and Figure 2.

Fig. 2. Detected stages of the parasites include: (A) A. lumbricoides egg; (B) T. canis egg; (C) Hookworm egg; (D) H. nana egg; (E) Taenia sp. egg; (F) T. trichiura egg; (G) G. lamblia cyst.

Table 2. Prevalence of intestinal parasites recovered from the gut contents of M. domestica trapped in different synanthropic sites in districts Lower Dir and Malakand, Pakistan.

Table 3 presents the proportion of houseflies with mono- and poly-parasitism of human intestinal parasites. According to the results, 208 (30.9%) houseflies had mono-parasitism, whereas 16 (2.38%) flies were infested with more than one species of parasite. The result further showed that poly-parasitism with two species of parasites was recorded in 11 (1.63%) flies, whereas 3-species poly-parasitism was observed in five (0.74%) flies only.

Table 3. Carrier patterns of M. domestica with intestinal parasites of humans trapped from different synanthropic sites in districts Lower Dir and Malakand, Pakistan.

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Discussion

The characteristics such as filthy breeding habits, feeding style, and unselective travel between filth and food make house flies synanthropic insects and efficient mechanical vectors of human intestinal pathogenic parasites. Information on the association between gastrointestinal parasitic infection carried by house flies is lacking in Pakistan; therefore, the current study aimed to determine the role of M. domestica as a carrier of various human intestinal parasites in the districts lower Dir and Malakand, Pakistan. The study revealed seven different species of human intestinal parasites isolated from the gut of the houseflies: A. lumbricoides, T. trichiura, hookworm sp, H. nana, Taenia sp., T. canis, and G. lamblia. This is in agreement whether in parts or whole with the previous studies that reported the presence of these parasites in houseflies (Nmorsi et al., 2006; Ogunniyi et al., 2015).

The current study revealed a 33.3% prevalence of parasitic organisms harbored by M. domestica, which is in accordance with a 22.8% prevalence in drug addicts in Swat, Pakistan (Khan et al., 2019a). Similar studies were conducted by Nmorsi et al., (2006), accounted as 75.4% of the housefly’s harbored gastrointestinal parasites. During surveys on human intestinal parasitic various rate of prevalence have been reported as 79.2% in shepherded of Swat, Pakistan (Nisa et al., 2011); 65.9% in students of Swat, Pakistan (Khan et al., 2015); 83.1% in food handlers of Swat, Pakistan (Khan et al., 2017a); 73.2% in various occupations (Khan et al., 2017b); 62.3% in school children of three districts of Malakand region, Pakistan (Khan et al., 2019b); 12.4% in Karachi Pakistan (Arshad et al., 2019); 82% in rural areas of Lower Dir (Ulhaq et al., 2021); 59.8% in food handlers (Khan et al., 2022); 71.7% in urban parts of Lower Dir (Rahman et al., 2022); 82% in school children (Khan et al., 2022); 58.5% in school children of Bajaur district, Pakistan (Subhan et al., 2023); 67% in school children (Fadladdin et al., 2024). It is to be noted that studies on house flies harboring gastrointestinal parasites represent a new contribution to the existing literature in the region.

The most prevalent parasite isolated from houseflies was A. lumbricoides, with a prevalence of 30.1%. In agreement with previous studies, this parasite was among the most prevalent in various human populations (Wakid et al., 2009; Nisa et al., 2011; Khan et al., 2015; Khan et al., 2017a, 2017b; Arshad et al., 2019; Khan et al., 2019b; Wakid, 2020; Ulhaq et al., 2021; Alqarni et al., 2022; Khan et al., 2022; Rahman et al., 2022; Subhan et al., 2023; Al-Refai and Wakid, 2024; Fadladdin et al., 2024). The abundance in prevalence of A. lumbricoides in both the human population and house flies indicates that house flies may play a prime role as carriers of this parasite to vulnerable human hosts. The current study also revealed that the dogs’ nematode T. canis is the second most prevalent infection spreading through house flies in the environment. This could be due to epidemiology, distribution, resistance of the ova to environmental hazards, vulnerability, and other factors (Tylkowska et al., 2024).

The anthropogenic activities such as climate change, urbanization, deforestation, the trading of wild animals, and unmanageable agricultural rise act as drivers for emerging and re-emerging diseases of zoonotic importance (Tazerji, et al., 2022). The implication of houseflies in the transmission of helminth diseases is alarming because houseflies live in close association with human habitation. Houseflies are common around households, particularly in garbage dumps and on human or animal excrement, and they are proven mechanical transmitters of pathogens to human food (Getachew et al., 2007).

The results of this study show that houseflies are more likely to transmit parasitic infections due to their direct contact with parasite-infested feces. Public latrines have the highest prevalence of parasite-infested feces. The study also revealed that 208 flies (92.8%) were infested with just a single species of parasite, while 11 (4.90%) and 5 (2.23%) had polyparasitism comprising two and three different parasite species, respectively. Therefore, as the flies make contact with these contaminated sites to feed, they carry with them infectious pathogens, including infective helminth eggs/larvae and protozoan cysts/oocysts, from these sites and deposit them on any surface they visit, including human food and water. The external structures of houseflies (antennae, mouthparts, and legs) and their lifestyles are adapted to transmit disease agents from one surface to another. Houseflies are known to clean themselves immediately as they withdraw from the surface on which they have been feeding, thus depositing contacted and ingested parasite eggs, larvae, and cysts on such surfaces (Getachew et al., 2007). Houseflies defecate every 4–5 minutes on any surface on which they land or feed, thereby depositing infectious pathogens, including any ingested helminth egg/larvae or protozoan cyst in the process.

The abundance of parasite-carrying houseflies in the different sample sites, particularly in hotels, abattoirs, and vegetable shops, highlights the potential danger and public health risk associated with these flies in causing food and waterborne diseases. The risk becomes even greater when raw or improperly cooked food, especially meat and vegetables, is consumed.

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Conclusion

During the current study, 672 houseflies were caught in various synanthropic habitats, including abattoirs, garbage piles, public latrines, vegetable shops, and hotels, located in the urban and rural areas of both districts. Of the total collected house flies, 33.3% (n=224) were harbored the parasites. House flies in public latrines had the highest parasite prevalence, whereas those in vegetable shops had the lowest prevalence rate. Seven different parasite species were isolated from various body parts of the houseflies: A. lumbricoides was the most abundant, followed by T. canis (dog nematode), hookworm sp, H. nana, G. lamblia, Taenia sp., and T. trichiura in order of prevalence. This study showed that houseflies are potential mechanical transmitters of parasitic infections to humans and could significantly contribute to the spread of foodborne parasitic diseases. Based on the findings of the present study, the following recommendations have been made: To keep the environment clean in order to keep the flies away, Trash should be properly disposed into sealed containers, a dumper should be emptied regularly and kept as far away as possible from buildings, manure and other decaying animal materials should be promptly removed, and open defecation should be discouraged. Policies on environmental hygienic principles for the control of house flies should be adopted through education campaign programs among the stakeholders to ensure the fly-free flies’ environment in abattoirs, garbage piles, public latrines, vegetable shops, and hotels.

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Acknowledgments

Authors are thankful to the owners of the abattoirs, public latrines managers, vegetable shops keepers, and hotels managerial staff, located in the urban and rural areas of both districts, for their cooperation in sampling of house flies.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Funding

No fund was available for the conduction of this study. This study was conducted on the authors’ own arrangements.

Author’s contribution

WK, UA, drafted the first version of the manuscript. MHW, ZM, JJ, and PDLE revised and edited the manuscript. WK, MHW, and ZM critically evaluated the manuscript. UA, MHW, and JJ edited the references. All authors have approved this version for publication.

Data availability

Data given in this article and available online.

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