Prevalence of Trypanosoma Evansi in Aborted Fetuses of Unicorn Camel in East and Center of the Iran

Trypanosoma evansi is a blood parasite protozoan that causes trypanosomiasis or surra in variety of economic valued animals such as camels and horses. One of the economic impacts of trypanosomiasis is abortion in camel. Present study was conducted to investigate the presence of T.evansi DNA in aborted fetuses of Iranian unicorn camel (Camelus dromedaries) using PCR method. In this study 225 abomasal contents of aborted fetuses were collected from camel herds in the east and center of Iran. The results of this study showed 38 (16.9 %) of 225 aborted fetuses were infected with genotype T.evansi. The findings of this study indicate a high presence of trypanosomiasis infection and according to the clinical signs of female camels, trypanosomiasis is one of the important factors to abortion in camels and take control programs, such as removal of artheropoda carriers to reduce the economic losses of this protozoan parasite in Iran are necessary. In this study, for the first time, a parasite was detected as the main cause of abortion in Iran in the contents of the aborted fetuses of female camels.