Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T01:14:10.118Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Age-dependent dynamics of Theileria equi and Babesia caballi infections in southwest Mongolia based on IFAT and/or PCR prevalence data from domestic horses and ticks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2007

S. R. RÜEGG
Affiliation:
Institute of Parasitology, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 266A, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
P. TORGERSON
Affiliation:
Institute of Parasitology, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 266A, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
A. MATHIS*
Affiliation:
Institute of Parasitology, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 266A, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
*
*Corresponding author. Tel: +41 44 635 85 36. Fax: +41 44 635 89 07. E-mail: [email protected]

Summary

Epidemiological factors of tick-borne equine piroplasmoses, caused by Theileria equi and Babesia caballi, were investigated using logistic regression (GLM) and general additive models (GAM) based on the prevalences determined in 510 domestic horses and in ticks in S.W. Mongolia by indirect immunofluorescence antibody test (IFAT) and/or multiplex PCR. Prevalences of T. equi and B. caballi in horses were 66·5% (95% CI: 62·1–70·7) and 19·1% (15·6–22·9), respectively by PCR and 78·8% (74·9–82·3) and 65·7% (61·3–69·9) by IFAT. Of 166 ticks analysed from PCR- and IFAT-negative horses 1 was PCR positive for B. caballi and none for T. equi. GAM demonstrated non-linear increasing proportions of T. equi-PCR and -IFAT positive horses with age suggesting persistent infection. In contrast, the B. caballi-PCR prevalence decreased with age despite a concurrent increase in the proportion of IFAT-positive animals suggesting parasite elimination. The tick (Dermacentor nuttalli) burden of the horses increased with age and decreased with advancing season. Geldings were more likely to be infected with, and seroconvert to, T. equi. Neither herd affiliation, date of sample collection nor abundance of tick infestation had a significant influence on parasite prevalence.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Allred, D. R. and Al-Khedery, B. (2004). Antigenic variation and cytoadhesion in Babesia bovis and Plasmodium falciparum: different logics achieve the same goal. Molecular and Biochemical Parasitology 134, 2735.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Arthur, D. R. (1960). Ticks, a Monograph of the Ixodidea: Part V on the Genera Dermacentor, Anocentor, Cosmiomma, Boophilus and Margaropus. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.Google Scholar
Avarzed, A., De Waal, D. T., Igarashi, I., Saito, A., Oyamada, T., Toyoda, Y. and Suzuki, N. (1997). Prevalence of equine piroplasmosis in Central Mongolia. Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research 64, 141145.Google ScholarPubMed
Battsetseg, B., Lucero, S., Xuan, X., Claveria, F., Byambaa, B., Battur, B., Boldbaatar, D., Batsukh, Z., Khaliunaa, T., Battsetseg, G., Igarashi, I., Nagasawa, H. and Fujisaki, K. (2002). Detection of equine Babesia spp. gene fragments in Dermacentor nuttalli Olenev 1929 infesting Mongolian horses, and their amplification in egg and larval progenies. Journal of Veterinary Medical Science 64, 727730.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Battsetseg, B., Xuan, X., Ikadai, H., Bautista, J. L., Byambaa, B., Boldbaatar, D., Battur, B., Battsetseg, G., Batsukh, Z., Igarashi, I., Nagasawa, H., Mikami, T. and Fujisaki, K. (2001). Detection of Babesia caballi and Babesia equi in Dermacentor nuttalli adult ticks. International Journal for Parasitology 31, 384386.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boldbaatar, D., Xuan, X., Battsetseg, B., Igarashi, I., Battur, B., Batsukh, Z., Bayambaa, B. and Fujisaki, K. (2005). Epidemiological study of equine piroplasmosis in Mongolia. Veterinary Parasitology 127, 3538.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Böse, R., Jorgensen, W. K., Dalgliesh, R. J., Friedhoff, K. T. and de Vos, A. J. (1995). Current state and future trends in the diagnosis of babesiosis. Veterinary Parasitology 57, 6174.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bruning, A. (1996). Equine piroplasmosis an update on diagnosis, treatment and prevention. British Veterinary Journal 152, 139151.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Byambaa, B., Dash, M. and Tarasevic, I. W. (1994). New research about tick-borne rickettsiosis [in Mongolian]. University of Ulaanbaatar, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.Google Scholar
Celi, F. S., Zenilman, M. E. and Shuldiner, A. R. (1993). A rapid and versatile method to synthesize internal standards for competitive PCR. Nucleic Acids Research 21, 1047.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Corpet, F. (1988). Multiple sequence alignment with hierarchical clustering. Nucleic Acids Research 16, 1088110890.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
de Waal, D. T. and van Heerden, J. (1994). Equine babesiosis. In Infectious Diseases of Livestock with Special Reference to South Africa (ed. Coetzer, J., Thomson, G. R. and Tustin, R. C.), pp. 295304. Oxford University Press, Cape Town.Google Scholar
Donnelly, J. and Peirce, M. A. (1975). Experiments on the transmission of Babesia divergens to cattle by the tick Ixodes ricinus. International Journal for Parasitology 5, 363367.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Estrada-Peña, A. and Estrada-Peña, R. (1991). Notes on Dermacentor ticks redescription of Dermacentor marginatus with the synonymies of Dermacentor niveus and Dermacentor daghestanicus (acari: ixodidae). Journal of Medical Entomology 28, 115.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Figueiras, A. and Cadarso-Suarez, C. (2001). Application of nonparametric models for calculating odds ratios and their confidence intervals for continuous exposures. American Journal of Epidemiology 154, 264275.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Filippova, N. A. and Panova, I. V. (1985). Contribution to the identification of species of the genus Dermacentor Koch of Siberia and the Far East by the immature (ixodoidea, ixodidae). Parazitologiya 19, 443455.Google Scholar
Friedhoff, K. T. (1988). Transmission of Babesia. In Babesiosis of Domestic Animals and Man (ed. Ristic, M.), pp. 2352. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, USA.Google Scholar
Gummow, B., de Wet, C. S. and de Waal, D. T. (1996). A sero-epidemiological survey of equine piroplasmosis in the northern and eastern Cape Provinces of South Africa. Journal of the South African Veterinary Association 67, 204208.Google Scholar
Helfenstein, U., Steiner, M. and Menghini, G. (1997). The use of generalised additive models (GAM) in dentistry. Community Dental Health 14, 221226.Google ScholarPubMed
Heuchert, C. M., de Giulli, V. J., de Athaide, D. F., Böse, R. and Friedhoff, K. T. (1999). Seroepidemiologic studies on Babesia equi and Babesia caballi infections in Brazil. Veterinary Parasitology 85, 111.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Horak, I. G., Camicas, J. L. and Keirans, J. E. (2002). The argasidae, ixodidae and nuttalliellidae (acari: ixodida): a world list of valid tick names. Experimental and Applied Acarology 28, 2754.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hourrigan, J. L. and Knowles, R. C. (1979). Equine piroplamsosis (E.P.). American Association of Equine Practitioners Newsletter 1, 119128.Google Scholar
Hughes, V. L. and Randolph, S. E. (2001 a). Testosterone depresses innate and acquired resistance to ticks in natural rodent hosts: a force for aggregated distributions of parasites. Journal of Parasitology 87, 4954.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hughes, V. L. and Randolph, S. E. (2001 b). Testosterone increases the transmission potential of tick-borne parasites. Parasitology 123, 365371.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mahoney, D. F. (1962). Epidemiology of babesiosis in cattle. Australian Journal of Science 24, 310313.Google Scholar
Phipps, L. P. and Otter, A. (2004). Transplacental transmission of Theileria equi in two foals born and reared in the United Kingdom. Veterinary Record 154, 406408.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pomerantzev, B. I. (1959). A translation of fauna of U.S.S.R. In Arachnida: Ixodid ticks [ixodidae], American Institute of Biological Sciences, Washington 6, D.C.Google Scholar
Potgieter, F. T., de Waal, D. T. and Posnett, E. S. (1992). Transmission and diagnosis of equine babesiosis in South Africa. Memorias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz 87, 139142.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Qi, B., Guangyuan, L. and Genfeng, H. (1995). Research on the abillity of various developmental stages of Dermacentor nuttalli to transmit Babesia caballi. Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica 28, 4752.Google Scholar
Randolph, S. E. and Nuttall, P. A. (1994). Nearly right or precisely wrong? Natural versus laboratory studies of vector-borne diseases. Parasitology Today 10, 458462.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Robert, N., Walzer, C., Rüegg, S. R., Kaczensky, P., Oyunsaikhan, G. and Stauffer, C. (2005). Pathological investigations at the reintroduction site of the Przewalski's horse (Equus caballus przewalskii) in Mongolia – What can we learn? Journal of Zoo and Wildlife Medicine 36, 273285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rüegg, S. R. (2002). Mortality causes and equine piroplasmoses at the reintroduction site of Przewalski's horses (Equus ferus przewalskii) in Takhin Tal, Mongolia. Doctoral thesis, University of Berne, Berne, Switzerland.Google Scholar
Rüegg, S. R., Torgerson, P. R., Doherr, M., Deplazes, P., Böse, R., Robert, N. and Walzer, C. (2006). Equine piroplasmoses at the reintroduction site of the Przewalski's horse (Equus ferus przewalskii) in Mongolia. Journal of Wildlife Diseases 42, 518526.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schein, E. (1988). Equine babesiosis. In Babesiosis of Domestic Animals and Man (ed. Ristic, M.), pp. 197208. CRC Press, Inc., Boca Raton, FL, USA.Google Scholar
Tenter, A. M. and Friedhoff, K. T. (1986). Serodiagnosis of experimental and natural Babesia equi and B. caballi infections. Veterinary Parasitology 20, 4961.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Voltzit, O. V. (1991). Correlation variability of morphometric characters in four species of ixodidae. Parazitologiya 25, 388395.Google Scholar
Wall, R. and Shearer, D. (2001). Veterinary Ectoparasites, Blackwell Wissenschafts-Verlag GmbH: Berlin, Germany.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yin, H., Lu, W. and Luo, J. (1997). Babesiosis in China. Tropical Animal Health and Production 29, 11S15S.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Supplementary material: File

Ruegg Supplementary Material

Data.txt

Download Ruegg Supplementary Material(File)
File 19.5 KB
Supplementary material: File

Ruegg Supplementary Material

Data.txt

Download Ruegg Supplementary Material(File)
File 3.4 KB