Canine tick-borne diseases in pet dogs from Romania

Abstract

BackgroundTick-borne diseases are of substantial concern worldwide for animals as well as humans. Dogs have been a human companion for millennia, and their significant impact on human life renders disease in dogs to be of great concern. Tick-borne diseases in dogs represent a substantial diagnostic challenge for veterinarians in that clinical signs are often diffuse and overlapping. In addition, co-infections with two or more pathogens enhance this problem further. Molecular methods are useful to disentangle co-infections and to accurately describe prevalence and geographical distribution of tick-borne diseases. At this point, this information is lacking in many areas worldwide. Romania is one such area, where prevalence and distribution of several important pathogens need to be further investigated. To address this, we screened blood samples from 96 sick dogs with molecular methods for eight different pathogens including Babesia spp., Theileria spp., Hepatozoon spp., Anaplasma spp., Ehrlichia spp., “Candidatus Neoehrlichia mikurensis”, Mycoplasma spp., and Borrelia spp.ResultsAs many as 45% (43/96) of the dogs in the study were infected with protozoan parasites. Babesia canis was the most frequent of these (28 infected dogs), whereas Hepatozoon canis was detected in 15% (14/96) and Babesia gibsoni was found in a single sample. Bacterial infection with Mycoplasma spp. occurred in 18% (17/96) of the sampled dogs. Obtained bacterial sequences revealed the occurrence of two species: Mycoplasma canis and “Candidatus Mycoplasma haematoparvum”. In several cases co-infection with protozoan parasites and Mycoplasma sp. were detected. All dogs were negative for Anaplasma spp., Ehrlichia spp., “Ca. Neoehrlichia mikurensis”, and for Borrelia spp. ConclusionsThe results from the present study reinforce the notion that Babesia canis is an important pathogen in the Romanian dog population. However, more surprisingly, another protozoan species, H. canis, seems to be infecting dogs to a larger extent than previously recognized in Romania. Well-known tick-borne bacterial disease agents such as Anaplasma spp. and Borrelia spp. were not detected. In contrast, less well-studied bacteria such as hemotropic Mycoplasma spp. were detected frequently. Moreover, co-infection might aggravate disease and complicate diagnosis and should be further studied in dogs.

Vector-Borne Pathogens-Testing in a Romanian Canine Blood Bank

“…However, if it is related to dogs tested before their first blood donation yearly, the prevalence of positive results was higher in 2015 than in 2016: 14.79% (33/223) and 13.06% (46/352), respectively. The results of D. immitis antigen detection highlights the necessity of continuously testing for this pathogen in all blood donors and supports the previously epidemiological studies concerning the prevalence of D. immitis in Southern (Mircean et al, 2012) and central East (Ciucă et al, 2016) regions of country. Figure 3: Dirofilaria immitis antigen positive results in donor dogs evaluated by Hemopet Blood Bank to be kept in the Donor Registry (dogs retested after their first donation) (Table 3) collected from 575 dogs (Table 1)…”

“…platys Ab)(Table 4). Despite several Romanian reports concerning the circulation of Ehrlichia canis and B. burgdorferi in dogs(Kiss et al, 2011;Mircean et al, 2012;Morar et al, 2015;Enache & Coprean, 2015) and in tickvectors(Vladimirescu et al, 2016), in our study non Ehrlichia and Borrelia species were detected in…”

“…Positive results obtained in all groups of donors and in both years of study recommend the necessity of A. phagocytophilum/A. platys continuous testing of donor pool, and this recommendation is also supported by epidemiologically studies performed in Romania that proved the risk of granulocytic anaplasmosis mainly in Central and Southern Romania, with a greater risk in the Southern lowland region (Matei et al, 2017), and clustered foci in southern regions and in the western part of the country (Mircean et al, 2012). As it was stated by Kidd (2003), ideally all dogs should be screened for D. immitis, A. phagocytophilum / A. platys, E. canis / E. ewingii and B. Burgdorferi.…”

Molecular survey of neglected bacterial pathogens reveals an abundant diversity of species and genotypes in ticks collected from animal hosts across Romania

“…A study investigating 96 dogs with suspected tick-borne infections from southern Romania did not show any case of infection with “ Ca. N. mikurensis” [ 43 ]. The degree to which “ Ca.…”

Detection Of Selected Pathogens In Ixodid Ticks Collected From Animals And Vegetation In Five Regions Of Ukraine

“…Western Europe [4,7,11,17,[44][45][46][47], the respective information for Eastern Europe is very scarce.…”