Summary

Summary

Canine tick-borne infections (CTBIs) are emerging in Sri Lanka. These CTBIs are difficult to detect and provide
veterinarians with significant diagnosis challenge. A large number of military working dogs and purebred owned dogs die due to CTBIs. Moreover, most CTBIs are zoonoses (spread to humans from animals). The proposed research will investigate the CTBIs like babesiosis, anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, borreliosis, hepatozoonosis, mycoplasmosis, leishmaniasis and rickettsial infections, adopting a One Health approach to examine different dog categories (community dogs, owned dogs and the military working dogs), rodents in domestic, peri-domestic and wild habitats, ticks that infest dogs and rodents and those questing on ground and vegetation to determine the types of infective agents and their affinities. The results will provide baseline data on the CTBIs, their reservoirs and tick species carrying the infections. Proposed research will also investigate zoonotic potential of tick-borne rickettsia, an emerging human infection.

Objectives

The main objective is to study the CTBIs in military, stray and owned dogs and to determine the
zoonotic potential of spotted fever group rickettsia. The specific objectives are;
1) To species identify the types of tick borne infections in different dog categories in different
locations
2) To determine the prevalence and intensity of tick borne agents: Babesia, Rickettsia, Anaplasma, Ehrlichia, Borrelia, Rickettsial infections and Leishmania in these dogs.
3) To sequence the DNA of these organisms and to analyse the phylogenetics of the infections in
imported and local dog breeds and the stray dogs.
4) To determine whether the infections were acquired locally or imported with the working dogs
5) To indentify the tick species and their stages that infest different dog categories
6) To determine the phylogenetic relationships of the rickettsia isolated from humans and dog
samples.

Major Equipment Facilitated by Grant