Prevalence of Theileria annulata infection in Hyalomma anatolicum anatolicum in Punjab state, India

Abstract

The study was conducted to assess the prevalence of Theileria infection in tick vectors collected from healthy animals to record the natural infection level of theilerial parasite in the field condition. A total of 156 male and 110 semi-engorged female of Hyalomma anatolicum anatolicum were collected from cattle and buffaloes of two different agro climatic zones of Punjab, dissected and their salivary glands were stained with Methyl Green Pyronin (MGP) stain. The prevalence, intensity and abundance of Theileria annulata infection were higher in female ticks (15.45%, 5.08 and 32.88, respectively) than male ticks (8.97%, 1.69 and 18.86, respectively). The ticks collected from cattle had a higher prevalence, abundance and intensity (15.15%, 5.38 and 35.53, respectively) of T. annulata infection than the ticks collected from buffaloes (9.58%, 1.74 and 18.13, respectively). Hot and dry climate favored the development of T. annulata sporozoites in H. a. anatolicum ticks as the prevalence, abundance and intensity of T. annulata infection were higher in ticks collected from Western semi arid zone of Punjab as compared to those collected from the central plain zone with hot and humid climate.

Prevalence of Theileria annulata infection in Hyalomma anatolicum anatolicum collected from crossbred cattle of Ludhiana, Punjab

“…The prevalence rate of Theileria infection was higher in female ticks than in males as has been earlier reported by several workers (Walker et al 1983;Buscher and Tangus 1986;Sangwan et al 1989;Haque et al 2010). The female ticks play a more important role in the transmission of Theileria infection as they have more abundance of type III acini than male ticks and Theileria parasites were only detected in type III acini (Irvin et al 1981).…”

“…Later MGP staining emerged as the most widely used staining method for detection of Theileria sporoblast in the salivary gland of H. a. anatolicum (Walker et al 1979;Irvin et al 1981;Buscher and Tangus 1986) for epidemiological studies. In Indian scenario similar studies has been carried out with prevalence rate of 32.8 % from Haryana (Sangwan et al 1986), 43.38 % from Tripura (Das and Sharma 1991), 15.9-92.3 % from various villages of Uttar Pradesh (Srivastava and Khan 1997) and 11.65 % from Punjab (Haque et al 2010).…”

“…However, in India only limited work has been carried out in some parts of the country viz. Haryana (Sangwan et al 1986), Tripura (Das and Sharma 1991), Uttar Pradesh (Srivastava and Khan 1997;Das and Ray 2003) and Punjab (Haque et al 2010).…”

Studies on alterations of clinical and hemato-biochemical parameters before and after treatment in calves naturally infected with theileriosis

“…Theileriosis causes heavy economic losses in terms of high morbidity, mortality and reduced production in recovered animals [4]. Around 10 million cattle are at risk for tropical theileriosis with an annual economic loss of around US $800 million in India [5].…”

Molecular evidence of Theileria equi infection in Hyalomma anatolicum ticks infested on sero-positive Indian horses

“…Eight tick species of the genera Dermacentor, Hyalomma and Rhipicephalus are known to be vector ticks for T. equi parasite in Afro-Eurasian countries (Friedhoff and Soulé 1996). Hyalomma anatolicum ticks have been identified as natural potential vector for transmission of T. annulata parasite among Indian cattle population (Tiwari et al 2013;Haque et al 2010), but no molecular evidences are available on harbouring T. equi infective stage in H. anatolicum ticks infested on Indian equine field population.…”