Clinical and diagnostic features of East Coast fever (Theileria parva) infection of cattle

Abstract

East Coast fever is a tick-borne protozoal disease affecting cattle in a large part of East and Central Africa. Since the vector occurs over an even wider range there is considerable potential for the disease to spread to countries which are currently disease free. This article, describing the clinical and diagnostic features of East Coast fever, may remind authorities in these countries of the potential hazards posed by the disease.

Theileria

“…Several investigators irradiated T. annulata meronts, suspensions of Τ annulatainfected ticks (Srivastava and Sharma, 1977a,b;Singh et al, 1979;Samantary et al, 1980), and meronts of T. parva (Purnell, 1977;Irvin et al, 1979;Irvin, 1984) in attempts to produce vaccines. Generally, the researchers found that the parasites were killed in a dose-dependent manner that led to a graded attenuation.…”

Molecular characterization of live Theileria parva sporozoite vaccine stabilates reveals extensive genotypic diversity

“…The parasite is transmitted by the brown ear tick Rhipicephalus appendiculatus and models for predicting the impact of climate change on tick-borne disease and tick distribution suggests that the number of cattle at risk of ECF will increase (Olwoch et al, 2008). Infection of susceptible cattle results in a rapid proliferation of infected lymphocytes and death within two to three weeks (Irvin and Mwamachi, 1983). Animals that survive infection, either naturally or following treatment, appear to be solidly immune to further disease.…”

A recombinant sporozoite surface antigen of Theileria parva induces protection in cattle.

“…After several cycles of multiplication, a proportion of schizonts undergo merogony to produce merozoites, which invade erythrocytes and develop into piroplasms, the infective stage for ticks. The disease is characterized by pyrexia, generalized lymphadenopathy, and leukopenia (5).…”