To assess the potential risk for other tick-borne diseases, we collected 100 adult Ixodes scapularis in Hunterdon County, a rapidly developing rural county in Lyme disease endemic western New Jersey. We tested the ticks by polymerase chain reaction for Borrelia burgdorferi, Babesia microti, and the rickettsial agent of human granulocytic ehrlichiosis (HGE). Fifty-five ticks were infected with a...

Abstract Tick-borne Spotted Fever Group Rickettsioses (SFGR) is a serious disease reported in low income communities of many developed countries. The dearth information on the existence SFGR most developing countries particularly Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) including Nigeria, has been attributed to factors chiefly amongst which are; poor knowledge disease, limitation diagnostic capacity, leading m...

Two enzyme immunoassays for the detection in immunoglobulin M (IgM) antibodies against tick-borne encephalitis virus were compared, employing a solid phase coated either with antigen or with mu-chain-specific antiserum to human IgM. The latter IgM-capturing assay system proved to be more sensitive, and its superiority was especially prominent when high titers of tick-borne encephalitis virus-sp...

Tick-borne diseases (TBDs) cause significant losses among livestock and impact the livelihoods of resource-poor farming communities worldwide. In Ethiopia, detailed studies on the epidemiology of tick-borne pathogens (TBPs) in cattle using sensitive molecular detection methods are scarce. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence and species composition of bovine TBPs of veter...

Mixed or multiple-strain infections are common in vector-borne diseases and have important implications for the epidemiology of these pathogens. Previous studies have mainly focused on interactions between pathogen strains in the vertebrate host, but little is known about what happens in the arthropod vector. Borrelia afzelii and Borrelia garinii are two species of spirochete bacteria that caus...

Most emerging infectious diseases today, such as West Nile virus and sudden acute respiratory distress syndrome (SARS), arise from zoonotic reservoirs and many are transmitted by arthropod vectors. Ticks are among the most competent and versatile arthropod vectors of infectious diseases because ticks of all ages and both sexes remain infectious for generations without having to reacquire infect...

Chronic infectious diseases, including tick-borne infections such as Borrelia burgdorferi may have direct effects, promote other infections and create a weakened, sensitized and immunologically vulnerable state during fetal development and infancy leading to increased vulnerability for developing autism spectrum disorders. A dysfunctional synergism with other predisposing and contributing facto...

Significant new insights are being made into tick modulation of host immune defenses and the implications of those host defense changes on tick-borne pathogen transmission and establishment of infection. Understanding tick saliva complexity increased with construction and analyses of salivary gland cDNA libraries. High throughput next generation sequencing and advances in proteomics are reveali...

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES Sporting dogs, including sled dogs, are particularly prone to tick-borne infection either due to training/racing in forest areas or through visits to endemic areas. The aim was to present tick-borne infections in a 6-dog racing team after a race in Estonia. MATERIALS AND METHODS On the 4th day after return to Poland, the first dog presented with babesiosis symptoms...

Lyme disease and Tick-Borne Encephalitis (TBE) are two emergent tick-borne diseases transmitted by the widely distributed European tick Ixodes ricinus. The life cycle of the vector and the number of hosts involved requires the development of complex models which consider different routes of pathogen transmission including those occurring between ticks that co-feed on the same host. Hence, we co...