Serosurvey of tick-borne pathogens in dogs from urban and rural areas from Parana State, Brazil

• Autor(a) principal: Vieira,Thállitha Samih Wischral Jayme
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Outros Autores: Vieira,Rafael Felipe da Costa, Nascimento,Denise Amaral Gomes do, Tamekuni,Kátia, Toledo,Roberta dos Santos, Chandrashekar,Ramaswamy, Marcondes,Mary, Biondo,Alexander Welker, Vidotto,Odilon
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista Brasileira de Parasitologia Veterinária (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1984-29612013000100104
• topic: Ehrlichia canis; Babesia vogeli; Anaplasma phagocytophilum; Borrelia burgdorferi; serology; Parana

Considering the zoonotic potential of tick-borne disease (TBD) agents and the fact that dogs may act as sentinels for human infection, the aim of the present study was to determine the seroprevalence of TBD agents and risk factors for exposure in two different canine populations from Parana State, Southern Brazil. A total of 138 dog serum samples from urban (UA) (n=68) and rural (RA) (n=70) areas were tested with commercial ELISA rapid test forAnaplasma phagocytophilum, Ehrlichia canisand Borrelia burgdorferi antibodies and indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFAT) for Babesia vogeli. An overall of 92∕138 (66.7%) dogs, being 62∕68 (91.2%) from UA and 30∕70 (42.9%) from RA, were seropositive for at least one TBD agent. From the total number of dogs, sixty-two were positive for E. canis (44.9%), 19 (13.8%) for A. phagocytophilum, and 64 (46.4%) for B. vogeli. Anti-B. burgdorferi antibodies were not detected. Dogs from UA showed a higher percentage of tick infestation (p = 0.0135) and were highly associated with seropositivity to E. canis (p = 0.000005), A. phagocytophilum (p = 0.0001), and B. vogeli (p = 0.0012). In summary, the findings indicate that dogs from urban areas present higher potential risk exposure to TBD pathogens than those from rural areas.