Global prevalence of Mesocestoides infections in animals – A systematic review and meta-analysis

[Display omitted] •Pooled global prevalence of Mesocestoides spp. in definitive host taxa is 21.72 %.•Pooled global prevalence of Mesocestoides spp. in intermediate host taxa is 7.09 %.•Sylvatic cycle is likely more important than domestic cycle.•Genetic information is available from only a few species in the genera. Mesocestoides spp. are zoonotic cestodes found as adults in carnivorous domestic and wild definitive hosts and as metacestodes in several taxa of intermediate hosts. Although several regional studies record its occurrence in different host populations, the global prevalence and patterns of occurrence of Mesocestoides spp. are not fully understood. The objective of this study was to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of published literature to estimate the global prevalence of Mesocestoides spp. in major definitive and intermediate host taxa. Records published in English were collected from NCBI PubMed, Science Direct, Web of Science and Google Scholar databases, with 364 papers being included in the meta-analysis. The overall pooled prevalence estimates show that 21.72 % (95 % CI: 18.49–25.14) of terrestrial carnivore definitive hosts and 7.09 % (95 % CI: 5.79–8.51) of intermediate hosts are infected. Among definitive hosts, opossums and foxes were most commonly infected with pooled global prevalence of 48.16 % (95 % CI: 14.62 − 82.69) and 35.97 % (295 % CI: 9.54 − 42.66) respectively. Pooled global prevalence in domestic dogs and cats were 7.97 % (95 % CI: 5.67 − 10.63) and 8.32 % (95 % CI: 3.78 − 14.41) respectively. Among intermediate hosts, birds and snakes were most commonly infected with pooled global prevalence of 16.19 % (95 %CI: 5.9 − 30.31) and 15.74 % (95 % CI: 10.59 − 21.69) respectively. Our analysis demonstrates that prevalence of Mesocestoides spp. is variable across the world. The sylvatic cycle in wild hosts is likely to be more important than the domestic cycle for the maintenance of Mesocestoides spp. globally. Currently available genetic data at the mitochondrial COI locus was also phylogenetically analyzed. The genetic data supports the taxonomic distinctiveness of only a few of the numerous morphologically described Mesocestoides spp.