Location: Animal Disease Research
Project Number: 2090-32000-043-001-A
Project Type: Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Aug 1, 2019
End Date: Jul 31, 2024
Objective:
1) Understand the relationship between E. ruminantium infection levels in Amblyomma variegatum and transmission.
2) Develop antibody detection test to reliably detect animals persistently infected with E. ruminantium.
Approach:
Bacterial parasites transmitted by ticks remain the major concern and challenge for livestock industries. Due to the lack of control strategies, tick-borne bacterial pathogens cause significant economic losses for livestock industries. Use of chemicals to control ticks is currently widespread and poses several problems including the risk of developing acaricide resistance, especially for Rhipicephalus tick species, and environmental contamination. Research efforts to address alternative methods to control tick-borne diseases are required. Completing the two objectives below will allow for the development of transmission models designed for risk assessment and methods to assess and prioritize intervention strategies in different situations. Additionally, an improved system to detect persistently infected animals would have immediate application in disease control. Due to the need for live animals infected with E. ruminantium, which precludes performing these experiments in the U.S., all objectives will be performed at CIRAD in Guadeloupe.
