Canine babesiosis in Romania due to Babesia canis and Babesia vogeli: a molecular approach

Abstract

Canine babesiosis is a tick-borne disease caused by the protozoa Babesia spp. that affects dogs worldwide. In Romania, canine babesiosis has become quite frequent in the last few years, with a wide variety of clinical signs, ranging from mild, nonspecific illness to peracute collapse, and even death. Traditionally, a Babesia infection in dogs is diagnosed based on the morphologic appearance of the intraerythrocytic piroplasms observed in peripheral blood smears. To date, no data on genetic characterization of Babesia species in dogs has been documented for Romania. Therefore, a molecular survey on natural Babesia infections of dogs in Romania using polymerase chain reaction and genetic sequence analysis of a fragment of the ssRNA gene was performed. A total number of 16 blood samples were tested for the presence of Babesia DNA. Blood samples were collected from 11 dogs with symptoms of babesiosis and microscopically proven positive for Babesia and from a group of five asymptomatic dogs, not tested microscopically for Babesia, which were included in the study for comparative analysis. The piroplasm-specific PCR amplifying the partial 18S rRNA gene confirmed Babesia spp. infection in all 11 samples from dogs with clinical babesiosis, and in one of the clinically normal dogs. Sequence analysis revealed the presence of Babesia canis in all clinically affected dogs and Babesia vogeli in one clinically normal dog. This is the first molecular evidence of B. canis and B. vogeli in dogs from Romania. The results of the study provide basic information toward a better understanding of the epidemiology of canine babesiosis in Romania and will help to promote an effective control program.

Comparative evaluation of different diagnostic tests for B. gibsoni in dogs

“…Direct blood PCR detected 26 % (39/150) positivity for babesiosis whereas, 18% (27/150) of samples were positive under microscopic examination (Ganguly et al, 2017). In comparison to microscopy, PCR detected more infection which is in agreement with the findings of other workers (Gotsch et al, 2009;O'Dwyer et al, 2009;Amuta et al, 2010;Ionita et al, 2012;Laha et al, 2014). The prevalence studies of B. gibsoni with PCR based assays were variable worldwide and ranging from 3.3 to 55% (Macintire et al, 2002;Inokuma et al, 2004;Talukder et al, 2012;Mokhtar et al, 2013;Laha et al, 2014;Singh et al, 2014).…”

Occurrence of different strains of Babesia canis in dogs in eastern Poland

“…However, recent studies by Łyp et al (13) revealed the presence of another genotype of the protozoa in Poland, which caused subclinical babesiosis in 10 dogs. Patients with this type of infection may serve as a source of Babesia parasite that is important from an epidemiological point of view (11).…”

Clinical babesiosis and molecular identification of Babesia canis and Babesia gibsoni infections in dogs from Serbia

“…Babesia canis is the most commonly found species in temperate regions of Europe. Several studies have detected this species in dogs from Hungary, Croatia, Italy, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, Portugal, Russia, Germany, Slovenia, France, Albania, the Netherlands, Norway (Solano-Gallego and Baneth, 2011) and Romania (Ionita et al, 2012). Babesia gibsoni infection has been described in some European countries using molecular methods: two dogs in Germany (Hartelt et al, 2007), four in Spain (Criado-Fornelio et al, 2003;Tabar et al, 2009), one dog in Italy (Trotta et al, 2009), 14 dogs in Romania (Imre et al, 2013) and six from Croatia were diagnosed with B. gibsoni subclinical infection (Beck et al, 2009).…”