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. 2017 Nov 13;13(1):331.
doi: 10.1186/s12917-017-1230-1.

Survey of vector-borne agents in feral cats and first report of Babesia gibsoni in cats on St Kitts, West Indies

Patrick John Kelly  1 , Liza Köster  1   2 , Jing Li  3 , Jilei Zhang  3 , Ke Huang  3 , Gillian Carmichael Branford  1 , Silvia Marchi  1 , Michel Vandenplas  1 , Chengming Wang  4
Affiliations

Survey of vector-borne agents in feral cats and first report of Babesia gibsoni in cats on St Kitts, West Indies

Patrick John Kelly et al. BMC Vet Res. .

Abstract

Background: As there is little data on vector-borne diseases of cats in the Caribbean region and even around the world, we tested feral cats from St Kitts by PCR to detect infections with Babesia, Ehrlichia and spotted fever group Rickettsia (SFGR) and surveyed them for antibodies to Rickettsia rickettsii and Ehrlichia canis.

Results: Whole blood was collected from apparently healthy feral cats during spay/ neuter campaigns on St Kitts in 2011 (N = 68) and 2014 (N = 52). Sera from the 52 cats from 2014 were used to detect antibodies to Ehrlichia canis and Rickettsia rickettsii using indirect fluorescent antibody tests and DNA extracted from whole blood of a total of 119 cats (68 from 2011, and 51 from 2014) was used for PCRs for Babesia, Ehrlichia and Rickettsia. We could not amplify DNA of SFG Rickettsia in any of the samples but found DNA of E. canis in 5% (6/119), Babesia vogeli in 13% (15/119), Babesia gibsoni in 4% (5/119), mixed infections with B. gibsoni and B. vogeli in 3% (3/119), and a poorly characterized Babesia sp. in 1% (1/119). Overall, 10% of the 52 cats we tested by IFA for E. canis were positive while 42% we tested by indirect fluorescent antibody (IFA) for R. rickettsii antigens were positive.

Conclusions: Our study provides the first evidence that cats can be infected with B. gibsoni and also indicates that cats in the Caribbean may be commonly exposed to other vector-borne agents including SFGR, E. canis and B. vogeli. Animal health workers should be alerted to the possibility of clinical infections in their patients while public health workers should be alerted to the possibility that zoonotic SFGR are likely circulating in the region.

Keywords: Babesia; Cat; Ehrlichia; Rickettsia; Vector-borne.

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Conflict of interest statement

Authors’ information

Please find the detailed author information in the title page of this MS.

Ethics approval

This study was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine (RUSVM).

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Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Phylogeny of 18S rRNA of Babesia species. The variable region of the 18S rRNA (540 bp) of Babesia strains identified in this study (in red font) are compared with those of other Babesia sequences deposited in GenBank (in black font). Branch lengths are measured in nucleotide substitutions and numbers show branching percentages in bootstrap replicates. Scale bar represents the percent sequence diversity
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