Cross border transhumance involvement in ticks and tick-borne pathogens dissemination and first evidence of Anaplasma centrale in Burkina Faso

Abstract

In West Africa, cross-border transhumance, also called seasonal migration, is known to be a very important animal production strategy, as it involves about 70 to 90% of cattle. In spite of the cattle movements, some strategic areas of transhumance remain poorly explored regarding ticks and their associated pathogens investigations. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the involvement of transhumance in the spread of cattle ticks and associated pathogens in Burkina Faso (BF) and Benin (BN), in a context of speedy invasion of West African livestock by Rhipicephalus microplus. A longitudinal survey was performed on 210 cattle from BF, monitored for ticks and tick-borne pathogens (TBP) during one seasonal transhumance. The first sampling coded "T0BF" took place in eastern BF, at the transhumance departure. A second sampling "T1BN" was carried out in northern BN, the transhumance arrival zone. A third sampling "T2BF" was done at the return of cattle in eastern BF. Ticks were morphologically identified and TBP detected with reverse line blot hybridization (RLB) assay. A total of 1027 ticks (7 species), 1006 ticks (11 species) and 1211 ticks (9 species) were respectively found at T0BF, T1BN and T2BF. Some species were collected at the three times of sampling without any significant difference in their relative abundances. However, other tick species appeared only at T1BN and/or T2BF. The TBP species found at the three points surveyed were Theileria annulata, Theileria mutans, Theileria velifera, Babesia bigemina and Anaplasma marginale. The most prevalent was T. mutans with 166/210 (79%), 159/210 (75.7%) and 78/210 (37%) cattle positive respectively at T0BF, T1BN and T2BF. Anaplasma centrale was evidenced with 0.5% and 0.9% respectively at T0BF and T2BF. To our knowledge, this represents its first report in the study area.Overall, the TBP prevalences were significantly lower at T2BF, highlighting the effect of tick populations changes induced by transhumance combined with the seasonal variation influence.

The Piroplasmida Babesia, Cytauxzoon, and Theileria in farm and companion animals: species compilation, molecular phylogeny, and evolutionary insights

“…Other non-transforming Theileria spp. described in cattle that are often found in high prevalence and are not associated with clinical cases are T. mutans and T. velifera, which are transmitted by Amblyomma ticks (Sivakumar et al 2014;Byaruhanga et al 2016;Kiara et al 2018Ouedraogo et al 2021). The T. mutans reference isolate (AF078815, cattle, Intona, Kenya) groups with isolates from zebu and goat into a single clade that is most closely related to Theileria sp.…”

Tick-Borne Diseases of Humans and Animals in West Africa

“…Similarly, A. marginale antigens have been detected in ELISA studies of cattle from Gambia [110]. The DNA of A. marginale has been reported in cattle from Nigeria [55,[111][112][113][114], Senegal [68], Ghana [112], Côte d'Ivoire [115], Burkina Faso, and Benin [42,44,112]. In ticks from West Africa, the DNA of A. marginale has been reported in Rh.…”

“…The DNA of E. ruminantium has been found in Am. variegatum collected in Mali, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Nigeria, and Benin [23,24,[38][39][40][41][42]. Although it has also been detected in other species of ticks, including Rh.…”

“…As the organism confers protective immunity against A. marginale and is less pathogenic, it is used as a live vaccine against A. marginale infections in cattle in many countries [106]. In animals from West Africa, the DNA of A. centrale has been reported in cattle in Nigeria [55,112], Senegal [68], Benin [112], and Burkina Faso [42,112]. In ticks, the DNA of A. centrale was found in Am.…”

“…Theileria annulata, the agent of tropical theileriosis manifested by fever and lymphadenomegaly, is transmitted by several species of Hyalomma and is present around the Mediterranean basin, northeast Africa, the Middle East, India, and South Asia. In West Africa, the DNA of T. annulata has been detected in cattle from Burkina Faso and Benin [42,44]. In ticks, the DNA of T. annulata was found in Am.…”