Bovine Tick Born Blood Parasites in Egypt: Vectors and Associated Risk Factors

Abstract

The current study intended to evaluate the involvement of ticks and mosquitos inBabesia and Theileria transmission. A total of 520 ticks and 280 mosquitoes werecollected and pooled (80 pools) from 6 localities in Menofia between May 2019and May 2021. Ticks and mosquitoes pools were molecularly examined usinguniversal GF2/GR2 Babesia/Theileria primers,PCR revealed thatout of 80 pools19(23.7%) were positive for piroplasms.One positive pool was subjected tosequencing,the results of the sequence analysis revealed Babesia bovis. Risk factoranalysis revealed that animal-keeping togethered has a significant effectonpiroplasms transmission, on the other hand breed, sex, age of animals, seasonand location have no significant effect on piroplasms transmission. Theprevalence of piroplasms infection in animal-keeping togethered was (15time)higher than individual animals, higher in summer season (25.7%) than winterseason (10%), higher in animals >3 year (26.3%) compared to the other agegroups, in female was (1.6 time) higher than in male, and higher (1.4 times) inimported breeds than native breeds.