Background: Relapsing fever caused by Borrelia persica, is an acute tick-borne disease which is transmitted by soft ticks of Ornithodoros tholozani to human. Methods: Value of PCR and xenodiagnosis for detection of B. persica in O. tholozani ticks was compared. Sixty-four Borrelia-free ticks were fed on infected guinea pigs and used for the experiments. For xenodiagnosis, a group of 32 ticks in...

A passive surveillance of tick-borne pathogens was conducted over a 7-year period (2006-2012), in which a total of 3551 ticks were submitted to the University of Massachusetts for PCR testing. The vast majority of these ticks were Ixodes scapularis from Massachusetts (N = 2088) and hence were the focus of further analysis. Two TaqMan duplex qPCR assays were developed to test I. scapularis ticks...

Hyalomma scupense is a two-host tick infesting mainly cattle representing in North Africa the vector of tropical theileriosis (Theileria annulata infection), a major tick-borne disease affecting cattle. Any effective control programme of ticks requires a good knowledge of the biology of the target species. In the present study, three cattle farms in northeast Tunisia were surveyed during the ac...

objectives: ticks are vectors of several diseases, of which many are zoonosis transmissible to humans. the use of tephrosia leafs’ extract as a low cost acaricide is spreading among farmers in central kenya. materials and methods: the present study’s aim is to inventory endogenous control methods against dogs’ ticks among which rhipicephalus sanguineus, in the municipality of abomey-calavi. fro...

The density of spirochetes in field-collected or experimentally infected ticks is estimated mainly by assays based on microscopy. In this study, a real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) protocol targeting the Borrelia burgdorferi-specific recA gene was adapted for use with a Lightcycler for rapid detection and quantification of the Lyme disease spirochete, B. burgdorferi, in field-collected Ixodes s...

background and aims: crimean-congo hemorrhagic fever (cchf) is a zoonosis caused by a nairovirus of the family bunyaviridae. infection is transmitted to humans mostly by hyalomma ticks. this study was conducted to determine the rate of cchfv infection in ticks in qom province of iran. materials and methods: in this study, reverse transcription – polymerase chain reaction (rt-pcr) was used to de...

BACKGROUND Mosquitoes are the primary vectors of West Nile virus (WNV). Ticks have, however, been suggested to be potential reservoirs of WNV. In order to investigate their role in the spread of the virus, ticks, which had been collected from birds migrating northwards from Africa to Europe, were analyzed for the potential presence of WNV-RNA. METHODS On the Mediterranean islands Capri and An...

BACKGROUND There is a little data on Coxiella burnetii (Q fever agent) in Iran. Ticks may play a significant role in the transmission of C. burnetii among animals. The aim of this study was to use polymerase chain reaction for the detection of C. burnetii in ticks collected in Southeast Iran. METHODS One hundred and sixty ticks were collected from domestic animals in three localities of Kerma...

BACKGROUND Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (s.l.) are the causative agent for Lyme borreliosis (LB), the most common tick-borne disease in the northern hemisphere. Birds are considered important in the global dispersal of ticks and tick-borne pathogens through their migration. The present study is the first description of B. burgdorferi prevalence and genotypes in Ixodes ricinus ticks feeding o...

background: the survey for the prevalence of different species of cattle hyalomma ticks was carried out in three districts (rawalpindi, multan and lahore) of punjab province in pakistan. the bionomical conditions suitable for hyalomma were also studied in laboratory. methods:  one hundred specimens of ticks of different genera were collected from each district. after identification, the hyalomm...