Equine piroplasmosis in Austria - a serological pilot study

Publikationen als Autor:in / Herausgeber:in der Vetmeduni

Joachim, Anja; de Heus, Phebe; Cavalleri, Jessika-Maximiliane

Abstrakt

Equine piroplasmosis (EP) is a tick-borne disease of horses, donkeys and wild equids. Chronically infected animals, which often only show reduced performance or are clinically unremarkable, constitute a potential risk for parasite spread. In Europe, currently no transboundary preventive measures for identifying infected animals or preventing their cross-border transportation are in place. In Austria, as in the neighbouring countries of Switzerland and Germany, EP has only been detected sporadically. By contrast, Austria's eastern neighbour, Hungary, is considered endemic for EP. The geographic vicinity to Hungary and a recently described autochthonous case of EP induced the present pilot study on the serological status of horses in eastern Austria. Serum samples of 173 clinically healthy horses of different age and sex from 43 different locations in Vienna and Lower Austria, without known stays abroad within the last 12 months, were examined by cELISA. Sampling had been conducted during a prevalence study on West Nile infections in 2017. Four horses (2.3 %) aged 7-28 years from three different locations were positive for anti-T. equi antibodies. Two of the positive horses had a Hungarian passport, and two horses an Austrian passport. One of the horses with an Austrian passport, however, was born in Romania. No horse was positive for anti-B. caballi-antibodies. The results of this study show that animals infected with T. equi occur in the east of Austria. Equine practitioners should consider EP as a possible cause of febrile diseases and haemolytic anaemia, but also be aware of chronic or subclinical courses of infection and the risk of parasite transmission from inapparent carriers. In addition, EP should be monitored in areas with known occurrence of Dermacentor as a vector-competent tick genus.

Dokumententyp

Originalarbeit

DOI

10.21836/PEM20220307