11 research outputs found
Prevalence of equine piroplasmosis in Central Mongolia
Antigen for the indirect fluorescent antibody test (IFAT) was routinely prepared from infected erythrocytes from horses experimentally infected with Babesia equi and Babesia caballi. With the successful
establishment of in vitro cultures of B. equi and B. caballi, it is now possible to employ culture-
derived antigens in this test. In this study, in vitro-propagated B. equi- and B. caballi-infected
erythrocytes were used as antigen in the IFAT. Various modifications to an established protocol had
to be implemented to allow repeatable results. Cultures with 3-4% parasitized erythrocytes were
found to be most suitable. As cross-reactions of control sera on heterologous antigen were observed
at serum dilutions of up to 1/40, a reciprocal titre of 80 was considered to be positive. In positive
samples, specific fluorescence of Babesia parasites and/or erythrocyte membranes was observed.
Fifteen sera from Babesia-free horses from Japan all tested negative in the IFAT. One hundred and
ten field-horse sera from Central Mongolia were investigated in this study. The results indicate that
both B. equi and B. caballi are endemic in horses in Central Mongolia, with 88,2% and 84,5% of
horses being seropositive to B. equi and B. caballi, respectively.The articles have been scanned in colour with a HP Scanjet 5590; 600dpi.
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Estimation of the transmission dynamics of Theileria equi and Babesia caballi in horses.
For the evaluation of the epidemiology of Theileria equi and Babesia caballi in a herd of 510 horses in SW Mongolia, several mathematical models of the transmission dynamics were constructed. Because the field data contain information on the presence of the parasite (determined by PCR) and the presence of antibodies (determined by IFAT), the models cater for maternal protection with antibodies, susceptible animals, infected animals and animals which have eliminated the parasite and also allow for age-dependent infection in susceptible animals. Maximum likelihood estimation procedures were used to estimate the model parameters and a Monte Carlo approach was applied to select the best fitting model. Overall, the results are in line with previous experimental work, and add evidence that the epidemiology of T. equi differs from that of Babesia spp. The presented modelling approach provides a useful tool for the investigation of some vector-borne diseases and the applied model selection procedure avoids asymptotical assumptions that may not be adequate for the analysis of epidemiological field data