Isolation and identification of normal conjunctival fungal flora in the Persian Kurd horse

This study was conducted to identify the fungi isolated from conjunctival sac of clinically normal Persian Kurd horses of Tabriz, north western Iran and to determine the effect of sex and age variations on the frequency of isolates. Forty horses (17 females and 23 males), aged 2-30 years, without clinical evidence of external ocular inflammation were selected and divided into two age groups (less than 10 years and over 10 years). Samples were taken from both conjunctival sacs of horses and seeded on the sabouraud dextrose agar and malt extract agar. Plates were incubated at 25°C for 7 days. Data were analyzed by Chi-square, Fisher's exact and Kendall Tau tests using SAS 9.1. Filamentous fungi and yeasts comprised 82.35% and 17.65% of total isolates, respectively. The most frequent isolate was Aspergillus species (38.82 %) followed by Penicillium spp (14.12%), Fusarium spp (8.24%), Chladosporium, Mucor and Scopulariopsis spp (5.88%), Pseudallescheria, Rhodotorula and Trichoderma spp (1.18 %). Gender had a significant effect on frequency of fungal isolation (p<0.05). Isolation of fungi decreased with increasing age but there was no significant correlation between them (p= 0.064, r= - 0.225). In conclusion, the frequency of fungal species isolated from conjunctival sac of clinically normal Kurd horses was influenced by gender. Generally, the fungal species isolated in our study are comparable with similar studies performed on horses in other regions.