Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Babesia gibsoni infection found in 10.6% of dogs across Japan
By Konishi, Kenji et al.·Published in Veterinary parasitology·2008·Department of Clinical Veterinary Science, Japan·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Epidemiological survey of Babesia gibsoni infection in dogs in Japan by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay using B. gibsoni thrombospondin-related adhesive protein antigen.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A survey of over 1,200 dogs in Japan found that about 10.6% tested positive for Babesia gibsoni, a parasite spread by ticks. The infection was more common in the western part of Japan, where nearly 14% of dogs were positive, compared to about 7% in the east. The study highlighted that having a history of tick infestations significantly increased the risk of infection, while factors like age, sex, and breed did not seem to matter much. This suggests that keeping dogs free from ticks is crucial to preventing Babesia gibsoni infection.
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Abstract
A nationwide epidemiological survey of Babesia gibsoni infection in non-fighting dogs was conducted using an improved ELISA with recombinant B. gibsoni thrombospondin-related adhesive protein (BgTRAP). A total of 1206 dogs from 27 prefectures were examined and 128 (10.6%) tested positive. In the eastern part of Japan, 39 dogs out of the 559 (7.0%) examined were positive, while 89 dogs out of 647 (13.8%) tested positive in the western part of Japan. Although the percentage of dogs that tested positive was significantly (p=0.0001) lower in the eastern part compared to the western part of Japan, overall these results indicate that B. gibsoni infection of dogs has a widespread geographic distribution throughout the country. A history of tick infestation was identified as a significant risk factor for B. gibsoni infection (p=0.0091), while sex (p=0.9411), age (p=0.0920) and breed (p=0.0549) of dogs were not statistically significant risk factors. These results indicate that tick infestation is the most dominant risk factor for B. gibsoni infection of non-fighting dogs in Japan and suggest that other B. gibsoni transmission routes, such as fighting and transplacental transmission, may be less important.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18565675/