Abstract
Increased prevalence of tick-borne disease in humans and animals is an important public health issue. Dogs can be clinically ill, reservoirs of tick-borne pathogens, or sentinel populations for research. Certainly, small-scale research has been conducted in dogs and this review will focus on the recent studies of emergent and re-emergent tick-borne pathogens in dogs in Serbia. Babesiosis stands out as the most common and important tick-borne disease in dogs. In addition to this pathogen, the presence of Hepatozoon canis and ?Candidatus Mycoplasma haematoparvum? in the blood of dogs was proved using molecular methods. Seroreactivity in dogs has been proven for Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (s.l.) complex, Ehrlichia canis, Ehrlichia ewingii, Anaplasma phagocytophilum, Anaplasma platys, Rickettsia conorii, and tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV). The presence of B. burgdorferi s.l. complex, A. phagocytophilum, Rickettsia spp. from the group of spotted fevers, and TBEV in ticks indicates the geographical distribution and potential for infecting humans, dogs, and other animals in Serbia. Further systematic, comprehensive, well designed, bacteriological, virological, parasitological, epidemiological, clinical (infectological), and acarological research is needed in Serbia.
Highlights
After the discovery of the cause of Lyme borreliosis (Burgdorfer et al, 1982; Steere et al, 1977), intensive research on tick-borne infections around the world began
The presence of A. phagocytophilum DNA in I. ricinus ticks has been proven, and Tomanović et al assumed that strains with potential infectivity for humans and domestic animals were present in Serbia (Tomanović et al, 2010b), the question as to why the disease is rarely clinically manifested in dogs remains open
Gabrielli et al reported the presence of H. canis in a dog (4.5% of studied dogs) from Niš (Gabrielli et al, 2015), while Potkonjak et al identified H. canis DNA in I. ricinus ticks collected from dogs in Serbia for the first time
Summary
After the discovery of the cause of Lyme borreliosis (Burgdorfer et al, 1982; Steere et al, 1977), intensive research on tick-borne infections around the world began. Multidisciplinary tick-borne infection research in Serbia began intensively after the registration of the first case of a human suffering from Lyme borreliosis (Djordjević et al, 1990) and the isolation of the causative agent, Borrelia burgdorferi s.l., from small rodents (Stajković et al, 1993). The main vector for E. canis in Europe is Rhipicephalus sanguineus s.l. According to our research, this tick species is most often present in dogs in Serbia but, so far, has been negative for the presence of E. canis DNA (Potkonjak et al, 2016a). The presence of A. phagocytophilum DNA in I. ricinus ticks has been proven, and Tomanović et al assumed that strains with potential infectivity for humans and domestic animals were present in Serbia (Tomanović et al, 2010b), the question as to why the disease is rarely clinically manifested in dogs remains open. We detected, in ticks, the presence of Rickettsia raoultii and Rickettsia massiliae in Serbia for the first time (Potkonjak et al, 2016a), but it is still not known if dogs are naturally infected with these Rickettsia species from the group of spotted fevers
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