Identification of Babesia species and vector ticks in equine in Meyaneh area

Babesiosis, a protozoan parasitic disease, caused by different species of Babesia . They transmitted by hard ticks, and can infected domestic, wild animals and rarely human. Babesiosis is a worldwide disease and their exclusively vectors are ticks. We tried to do a complete investigation to determine the Babesiosis in equine and also the Babesia vectors in Meyane area North West of Iran from March to December 2009.For this aim total of 300 horse and ass were selected randomly for identification of infection with Babesia in blood smears and ticks on their bodies. The blood smears were taken from external veins of ear and stained with Gimsa. During this surveytotal of 300 examined equine, 49 (16.4%) were infected by ticks. 18 of the infected cases were horses that among them 9 were infected by Hyalomma anatolicum anatolicum , 3 were infected by Rhipicephalus bursa and one case had Haemaphysalis punctate and the other ones had simultaneously ticks infection. 31 asses were infected too, 14 had Hyalomma anatolicum anatolicum, 8 had Rhipicephalus bursa and 2 of them were infected by Haemaphysalis punctate. 5 stained blood smear of horses shown infection by Babesia equi but there were no Babesia infection in ass blood smears. In order to the results, the most common species of Babesia that infect horses in Meyaneh area is Babesiaequi (4.1%), and the most tick infestation were  Hyalomma anatolicum anatolicum (11.66%).