Vol. 11, Special Issue 9 (2022)

Author(s):
Debajit Roy, Partha Sarathi Jana, Mrityunjay Mandal, Soumitra Pandit, Chanchal Guha, Ujjwal Biswas and Shubhankar Halder

Abstract:
Caprine theileriosis is a lymphoproliferative disease with serious impacts in terms of high morbidity, mortality and production loss. The present study was undertaken to determine the prevalence of Theileria sp. in goats of West Bengal from October 2019 to March 2020 by microscopic examination and polymerase chain reaction as well as for characterization of the species. A total of 135 whole blood samples along with thin blood smears were collected from randomly selected goats from five different areas of West Bengal. The Giemsa stained blood smears were screened under microscope for presence of Theileria sp. and thereafter genomic DNA was extracted from each of the whole blood samples. PCR was carried out to amplify the 1098 bp fragment of ssu-rRNA gene using published primer set. The diagnosis was based on demonstration of Theileria piroplasm on blood smear and positive PCR results. The estimated prevalence results were categorized according to the age, sex and area of the study. Out of 135, 11 samples (8.15%) were tested positive for Theileria sp. on microscopy compared to 17 (12.6%) on PCR. On the other hand; the sex wise prevalence was greater in females than males and age-wise prevalence was highest in <1 year old animals, followed by 1-2 years and >2 years old animals in both methods. The purified PCR product of one isolate was sequenced and analysed in DNASTAR software. The sequence was 98.21% homologous with two other published sequences of Theileria luwenshuni in NCBI BLAST. This is the first report of Theileria luwenshuni in goats of West Bengal.