Prevalence of Trypanosomiasis (Surra) in Horses of Saurashtra Region in Gujarat

Abstract

Surra is one of the fatal diseases of the horse caused by Trypanosoma evansi. The disease is characterized by fever, progressive emaciation, anemia, subcutaneous edema, nervous signs, and death. To know the epidemiological status of surra in horses, retrospective information was retrieved by scrutinizing the data bank of the Veterinary Clinical Complex, JAU, Junagadh for three years (2013-15) covering 633 equine cases. According to symptoms, the incidence of surra was 10.64% (28/263) among medicinal cases, of which 57.14% (16/28) had shown signs of hemoprotozoon disease and 50.00% (8/16) were confirmed to have Trypanosoma evansi on blood smear examinations. Overall the clinical prevalence of T. evansi was 2.52% of the total equine cases (16/633). The age-wise incidence was higher in adult horses (68.75%) followed by yearling (25.00%) and foal (6.25%). The breed-wise incidence of T. evansi was higher in Kathiawari breed (68.75%) followed in descending order in non-descript (18.75 %) and Marwari breed (12.50%). The incidence was higher in female (68.75%) than the male. The season-wise prevalence rate of T. evansi was higher in monsoon (July-October) (75.00%) than winter season (25.00%), while no case was observed in summer.