Babesiosis is a tick-borne hemoprotozoan disease of domestic and wild animals. The disease is caused by various species of Babesia and some species of Babesia have also zoonotic significance. The parasite in vertebrate hosts’ remains in erythrocytes and the morphology of Babesia spp. is not uniform in all vertebrate hosts. With the advancement of science, particularly the use of molecular techniques made it easy to study the evolution of parasites and thereby reclassifying Babesia spp. as per their phylogeny and to establish the relation of one isolate of Babesia spp. with isolates throughout the world. An attempt also made in this communication to enlighten the readers regarding relationship of one isolate of Babesia spp. of a particular area to another isolate of Babesia spp. of that area or other parts of the world and phylogenetic classification of Babesia spp. was also discussed. It has been concluded that as the study on Babesia is complex in nature so monitoring of the infection with the use of modern techniques is very much needed to control the infection. Second, more research work on phylogenetic relationship of Babesia spp. isolated from different hosts is needed, particularly in India to know the evolution of Babesia spp. of a particular area, as it has great importance to study the trans boundary diseases of animals.

Aim:To determine the prevalence and diversity of Eimeria spp. in dairy cattle present in and around Guwahati, Kamrup district, Assam, India.Materials and Methods:A total of 2339 fecal samples of calves (535), heifer (641) and adult (1163) cattle were screened for 1 year present in and around Guwahati, Assam for detection of Eimeria oocysts by flotation techniques. Sporulation of the oocyst was done in 2.5% potassium dichromate solution for identification of the Eimeria species.Results:Examination of fecal samples revealed an overall prevalence of 11.97% Eimeria infection in dairy cattle of Guwahati, Assam. Age-wise, 33.2%, 45.4%, and 21.4% infections were recorded in calves (<1 year), heifer (1-3 years) and adult (>3 years) cattle, respectively. Season-wise, infection was recorded highest during post-monsoon (16.29%), followed by monsoon (15%), winter (9.44%), and pre-monsoon (7.49%) season. Seven species of Eimeria were recorded viz. Eimeria bovis, Eimeria zuernii, Eimeria subspherica, Eimeria bukidnonensis, Eimeria auburnensis, Eimeria ellipsoidalis and Eimeria alabamensis. The oocyst count per gram of feces ranged from 50 to 1500 in infected cattle.Conclusion:This study indicates that there is the prevalence of seven species of Eimeria in dairy cattle of Guwahati, Assam and mostly prevalent during the post-monsoon season.

The objective of the study was to detect Babesia infections in pet dogs of a north-eastern state of India. The diagnostic efficacy of Babesia infection by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique has been compared with microscopy examination. For this, a total of 111 blood samples of pet dogs presented at clinical complex of the College of Veterinary Science, Guwahati, Assam with clinical signs suspected for Babesia infection subjected to the study. A total of 44 (39.63 %) dogs were diagnosed as positive for Babesia infections after microscopic examination. Among these, Babesia canis infection was diagnosed in 5 dogs (4.50 %) and B. gibsoni infection in 39 (35.13 %) dogs microscopically in Giemsa stained blood smears. Molecular diagnosis using PCR detected 63 (56.75 %) dogs positive for Babesia infection. Single infection with B. canis was found in 9 (8.10 %) dogs while B. gibsoni alone was detected in 3 (2.70 %) dogs. Mixed infections by both these species were detected in 51 (45.94 %) dogs. Overall, PCR detected 54 (48.64 %) dogs as B. gibsoni and 60 (54.05 %) dogs as B. canis positive.

Skin lesions were collected from 15 adult crossbred pigs maintained at the pig farm of ICAR Research Complex for the North-Eastern Hill Region, Umiam, a hilly region of the state of Meghalaya, India. Skin scrapings of these 15 animals were examined by KOH digestion method. Presence of mites were detected in five animals which were indistinguishable from Sarcoptes scabiei var. suis. Infected pigs were treated with a single dose of Ivermectin at 200 ug/kg body weight, subcutaneously. No mites were recovered from treated pigs after a period of 10 days of post-treatment. The presence of S. scabiei var. suis in pigs from this part of the country has never been reported. This infestation has great significance because it affects the growth rate and feed conversion significantly, specially to the grower and weaned pigs. It can be concluded that S. scabiei var. suis infestation is prevalent in hilly region of Meghalaya. The pig producers are generally unaware about the severity of the problem of mite infestation, so precaution should be taken to prevent their valuable pigs from S. scabiei var. suis infestation.

The objective of the present study was to determine the prevalence of gastrointestinal (G.I.) parasitic infections in cattle and swamp buffalo of Assam, India. A total of 3597 fecal samples of cattle (2339)

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Aim:The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of gastrointestinal (GI) parasitic infections in goats of hilly region of Meghalaya.Materials and Methods:A total of 834 fecal samples of goats were screened for 1 year (2014-2015) using flotation techniques.Results:The overall prevalence of GI parasitic infections in goats was 28.65%. Season-wise highest infections were recorded during rainy season (34.92%) followed by cool (26.87%), hot (26.62%), and cold (20.39%) seasons. Helminths and protozoa infections were recorded in 63.60% and 23.02% animals, respectively. Among the helminths, Strongyle spp. (32.63%) was recorded highest followed by Trichuris spp. (12.55%), Moniezia spp. (10.04%), and Trichuris spp. (8.36%). Among protozoa, only Eimeria spp. was detected. Seven different species of Eimeria spp. were identified, viz., Eimeria christenseni, Eimeria hirci, Eimeria caprina, Eimeria jolchijevi, Eimeria ninakohlyakimovae, Eimeria arloingi, and Eimeria kocharii for the first time from Meghalaya. Maximum egg per gram and oocyst per gram of feces were recorded in the month of August (932.4) and September (674.05), respectively. Mixed infections were recorded in 13.38% samples. Coproculture of goat fecal samples revealed the presence of Haemonchus contortus (72.16%), Oesophagostomum spp. (14.41%), Strongyloides spp. (8.91%), and Trichostrongylus spp. (4.50%) larvae.Conclusion:This study indicates that GI helminths and protozoa infections are prevalent in goats of this hilly region of Meghalaya, throughout the year and highly prevalent during rainy season.

A total of 333 blood samples were collected from cattle suspected for haemoprotozoan infections from three states of north-eastern part of India. All the samples were examined for diagnosis of Babesia bigemina infection using PCR for detection of specific DNA. Out of these, 12 (3.60%) samples were found positive for B. bigemina DNA on PCR using the organism-specific primers derived from 18S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene of B. bigemina. An expected size of 1124-bp PCR product was visualized on agarose gel electrophoresis with all the 12 samples, and four of the products was further cloned and sequenced. Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) analysis of B. bigemina sequences generated in the present study share 99.2 to 99.7% identity at 18S rRNA gene nucleotide sequence level. These Indian B. bigemina sequences were found to be closely related with the cognate gene nucleotide sequences of B. bigemina from Argentina and Kenya where 99.1 to 99.9% and 99.0 to 99.7% nucleotide identities were observed, respectively. Distant relationship of these Indian organisms was observed with few cognate gene sequences from China where more than 7% divergence was observed in the distance matrix.