Discovering Lyme Disease in Ticks and Dogs in Serbia – Detection and Diagnostic Methods

Lyme disease is one of the infectious diseases discovered in the last three decades. It is a systemic, infectious and zooantropoic disease. Lyme disease is caused by spirochetes Borrelia burgdorferi s.l., and is primarily transferred via Ixodes ticks. Ticks that are vectors for Lyme disease in Europe and also in Serbia are from Ixodes ricinus species (Burgdorfer et all, 1989). Up to date the existence of 13 strains of Borreliae burgdoerferi sensu lato, is confirmed and only three of them are pathogens for humans and animals: B. burgdorferi sensu stricto, B. afzelii and B. garinii. After natural infections of dogs with pathogen strains of B. burgdorferi s.l. clinical symptoms are found in 5% of infected dogs. In most of the cases clinical symptoms are similar to a second stadium of Lyme disease in humans – anorexia, weakness, lymphadenopathia, increase of body temperature. Later, 2-5 months after a tick bite an intermittent lameness can be found.