Occurrence of tick-borne haemoparasites in cattle in the Mungwi District, Northern Province, Zambia

Abstract

Little is known about the occurrence of haemoparasites in cattle in communal grazing areas of Mungwi District of Northern Province, Zambia. Clinical signs and post mortem lesions are pathognomonic of mixed tick-borne infections especially babesiosis, anaplasmosis and East Coast fever. The main objective of this study was to screen selected communal herds of cattle for tick-borne haemoparasites, and identify the tick vectors associated with the high cattle mortalities due to suspected tick-borne diseases in the local breeds of cattle grazing along the banks of the Chambeshi River in Mungwi District, Northern Province, Zambia. A total of 299 cattle blood samples were collected from July to September 2010 from Kapamba (n = 50), Chifulo (n = 102), Chisanga (n = 38), Kowa (n = 95) and Mungwi central (n = 14) in the Mungwi District. A total of 5288 ticks were also collected from the sampled cattle from April to July 2011. DNA was extracted from the cattle blood and the hypervariable region of the parasite small subunit rRNA gene was amplified and subjected to the reverse line blot (RLB) hybridization assay. The results of the RLB assay revealed the presence of tick-borne haemoparasites in 259 (86.6%) cattle blood samples occurring either as single (11.0%) or mixed (75.6%) infections. The most prevalent species present were the benign Theileria mutans (54.5%) and T. velifera (51.5%). Anaplasma marginale (25.7%), Babesia bovis (7.7%) and B. bigemina (3.3%) DNA were also detected in the samples. Only one sample (from Kapamba) tested positive for the presence of T. parva. This was an unexpected finding; also because the tick vector, Rhipicephalus appendiculatus, was identified on animals from Kowa (14.0%), Chisanga (8.5%), Chifulo (6.0%) and Kapamba (1.4%). One sample (from Kapamba) tested positive for the presence of Ehrlichia ruminantium even though Amblyomma variegatum ticks were identified from 52.9% of the sampled animals from all study areas. There was significant positive association between T. mutans and T. velifera (p < 0.001) infections, and between A. marginale and B. bovis (p = 0.005). The presence of R. microplus tick vectors on cattle was significantly associated with B. bovis (odds ratio, OR = 28.4, p < 0.001) and A. marginale (OR = 42.0, p < 0.001) infections, while A. variegatum presence was significantly associated with T. mutans (OR = 213.0, p < 0.001) and T. velifera (OR = 459.0, p < 0.001) infections. Rhipicephalus decoloratus was significantly associated with B. bigemina (OR = 21.6, p = 0.004) and A. marginale (OR = 28.5, p < 0.001). Multivariable analysis showed a significant association between location and tick-borne pathogen status for A. marginale (p < 0.001), T. mutans (p = 0.004), T. velifera (p = 0.003) and T. taurotragi (p = 0.005). The results of our study suggest that the cause of cattle mortalities in Mungwi during the winter outbreaks is mainly due to A. marginale, B. bovis and B. bigemina infections. This was confirmed by the clinical manifestation of the disease in the affected cattle a...

The host-specificity of Theileria sp. (sable) and Theileria sp. (sable-like) in African Bovidae and detection of novel Theileria in antelope and giraffe

“…(sable-like) detected no positive cattle ( n = 428) or buffalo ( n = 238), while antelope showed prevalence's of 12–90% for much smaller sample sizes. Prevalence estimates ranged from 18–47% for buffalo and cattle using RLB analysis (Muhanguzi et al ., 2010; Yusufmia et al ., 2010; Eygelaar et al ., 2015; Njiiri et al ., 2015; Tembo et al ., 2018). The presence of T. sp.…”

“…sp. (sable) has been detected in African buffalo ( Syncerus caffer ), cattle, blesbuck ( Damaliscus pygargus ), blue wildebeest ( Connochaetes taurinus ), klipspringer ( Oreotragus oreotragus ), reedbuck ( Redunca arundinum ), nyala ( Tragelaphus angasii ), sable antelope ( Hippotragus niger ), roan antelope ( Hippotragus equinus ) and dogs (Nijhof et al ., 2005; Matjila et al ., 2008; Muhanguzi et al ., 2010; Yusufmia et al ., 2010; Chaisi et al ., 2011; Pfitzer et al ., 2011; Adamu et al ., 2014; Eygelaar et al ., 2015; Njiiri et al ., 2015; Tembo et al ., 2018). It was also detected using sequencing in red hartebeest ( Alcelaphus buselaphus caama ) (Spitalska et al ., 2005).…”

“…The prevalence of these two genotypes in various bovids was studied by using a novel real-time hybridization assay capable of distinguishing these two genotypes. The study was conducted to specifically test the hypothesis that African buffalo and cattle are hosts for these genotypes, as reported previously using RLB analysis, where high prevalence ranging from 18–47% was observed (Muhanguzi et al ., 2010; Yusufmia et al ., 2010; Eygelaar et al ., 2015; Njiiri et al ., 2015; Tembo et al ., 2018). To validate the novel assay, the Theileria diversity in various antelopes was also investigated using a NGS approach previously used to study diversity in cattle and African buffalo (Mans et al ., 2016).…”

A novel Babesia sp. associated with clinical signs of babesiosis in domestic cats in South Africa

“…DNA was extracted according to the manufacturer’s instructions using the QIAamp ® DNA Mini Kit (Qiagen, Whitehead Scientific, South Africa). The V4 hypervariable region of the parasite 18S rRNA gene was PCR amplified using Babesia and Theileria genus-specific primers RLB-F2 and biotin-labelled RLB-R2 [24, 25]; PCR reaction conditions were as described by Tembo et al [26]. DNA extracted from blood from a known T. parva -infected buffalo [27] was used as a positive control, while PCR master mix without DNA was used as a negative control.…”

“…The PCR products were then analysed using the RLB hybridization technique as previously described [24, 25, 28, 29]. Genus- and species-specific probes as described by Tembo et al [26] were included on the membrane; in addition to this, a B. lengau probe [22] was also included.…”