Biological control of Fasciola gigantica with Echinostoma revolutum

A field trial was carried out in West Java to investigate the potential for control of fasciolosis of antagonism between larvae of Fasciola gigantica and Echinostoma revolutum in Lymnaea rubiginosa. The trial was undertaken in 26 farmers’ irrigated rice fields, each chosen because it was adjacent to a cattle pen the effluent from which flowed into or was used as fertiliser in the rice field. Fourteen of the fields chosen at random were retained as controls and received no treatment while in 12, faeces from 5 to 15 ducks containing eggs of E. revolutum were introduced to the rice from a duck pen located over the effluent drain from the cattle pen before it emptied into the adjacent rice field, or at the site bovine faeces was added to the field as fertiliser. After harvest significantly fewer L. rubiginosa were found infected with F. gigantica in fields where duck and cattle dung entered the field together than in control fields, supporting a conclusion that this method of biological control would reduce the infectivity of rice fields fertilised with bovine dung (which are those with the highest potential for being a source of infection with F. gigantica). Positive features of using dung from ducks infected with E. revolutum to control F. gigantica are the minimum additional work and disruption to existing farming practices required to implement the scheme, the common natural infection with E. revolutum in village ducks, and effectiveness of dung from 5 to 15 ducks, a number commonly kept by farmers.