Molecular detection of Babesia spp. in ticks in northern Serbia

Canine babesiosis is a frequent and clinically significant tick-borne disease. Sixty symptomatic dogs with clinical findings compatible with babesiosis were included in this study conducted in Serbia. After clinical examination, blood samples were taken for microscopic examination, complete blood count (CBC), Canine SNAP 4Dx Test, DNA analyses and sequencing. The main clinical signs included apathy, anorexia, fever, brown/red discoloration of urine, pale mucous membranes, icterus, splenomegaly, and vomiting. The main clinicopathological findings in Babesia infections were a slight to severe thrombocytopenia and a mild to very severe normocytic normochromic anaemia. Microscopic evaluation revealed 58 positive samples with the presence of large and small intraerythrocytic piroplasms in 57 and 1 sample(s), respectively. No co-infections were found using SNAP test. Two Babesia species, B. canis (58/60) and B. gibsoni (2/60), were differentiated by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). Species identification was further confirmed by sequencing PCR products of B. gibsoni samples and six randomly selected B. canis samples. All dogs were treated with imidocarb dipropionate (6.6 mg/kg of body weight), given intramuscularly twice at an interval of 14 days. This report presents the first molecular evidence of the occurrence of B. gibsoni and B. canis, confirmed by DNA sequencing, in sick dogs from Serbia.

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“…The same refers to B. canis, whose presence was proven in vector species, D. reticulatus and D. marginatus, in Serbia (Mihaljica et al, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Davitkov

Vučićević

Stevanović

et al. 2015

Acta Veterinaria Hungarica

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“…The tick’s range around the Pannonian biogeographical region includes eastern Slovenia [ 93 , 132 ], northern Croatia [ 133 , 134 ], and northern Serbia [ 135 , 136 ]. Ticks have also been occasionally reported from dogs in Bosnia and Herzegovina [ 133 , 137 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dermacentor reticulatus: a vector on the rise

et al. 2016

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Dermacentor reticulatus is a hard tick species with extraordinary biological features. It has a high reproduction rate, a rapid developmental cycle, and is also able to overcome years of unfavourable conditions. Dermacentor reticulatus can survive under water for several months and is cold-hardy even compared to other tick species. It has a wide host range: over 60 different wild and domesticated hosts are known for the three active developmental stages. Its high adaptiveness gives an edge to this tick species as shown by new data on the emergence and establishment of D. reticulatus populations throughout Europe. The tick has been the research focus of a growing number of scientists, physicians and veterinarians. Within the Web of Science database, more than a fifth of the over 700 items published on this species between 1897 and 2015 appeared in the last three years (2013–2015). Here we attempt to synthesize current knowledge on the systematics, ecology, geographical distribution and recent spread of the species and to highlight the great spectrum of possible veterinary and public health threats it poses. Canine babesiosis caused by Babesia canis is a severe leading canine vector-borne disease in many endemic areas. Although less frequently than Ixodes ricinus, D. reticulatus adults bite humans and transmit several Rickettsia spp., Omsk haemorrhagic fever virus or Tick-borne encephalitis virus. We have not solely collected and reviewed the latest and fundamental scientific papers available in primary databases but also widened our scope to books, theses, conference papers and specialists colleagues’ experience where needed. Besides the dominant literature available in English, we also tried to access scientific literature in German, Russian and eastern European languages as well. We hope to inspire future research projects that are necessary to understand the basic life-cycle and ecology of this vector in order to understand and prevent disease threats. We conclude that although great strides have been made in our knowledge of the eco-epidemiology of this species, several gaps still need to be filled with basic research, targeting possible reservoir and vector roles and the key factors resulting in the observed geographical spread of D. reticulatus.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13071-016-1599-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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“…The distribution of H. concinna includes the Palearctic and Oriental Zoogeographic Regions (Guglielmone et al 2014) and finding of this species in Bosnia and Herzegovina is expected. This species has been previously recorded in neighboring countries: Croatia (Krčmar 2012) and Serbia (Jurišić et al 2012;Mihaljica et al 2012). Although investigations of Ixodid ticks in the area of Bardača were conducted since 2013 (Dmitrović et al 2013), until now there was not information about presence of this species in studied area.…”

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confidence: 87%