Prevalence of Blood Protozoa in Street Dogs of The Bharatpur Metropolitan Area of Nepal.

Different hemoparasites are linked to companion animals like dogs and cats, which canpose substantial health risks and have a significant financial impact on owners. Nepal'smajor cities have huge number of stray dog populations. Due to its extremepathogenicity, a haemoprotozoan infection is one of the most significant tick-borneinfections. Hemoprotozoan diseases caused by many Trypanosoma species includetrypanosomosis, theileriosis, babesiosis, and anaplasmosis. Ticks thrive in the hot,humid climate, which also serves as a dependable source of infection for vulnerableanimals like dogs. A research was carried out in the Bharatpur Metropolitan City ofChitwan, Nepal during June and July 2022 to assess the incidence of tick-borne bloodprotozoa in stray dogs. Blood samples were randomly collected and the smears wereexamined under microscope by the Giemsa staining method. Out of 105 street dogs only14 samples tested positive for blood protozoa. Among these three types ofbloodprotozoa were detected, Theileria spp. (10.47%) was found to have the highestprevalence rate followed by Babesia spp. (1.9%) and Ehrlichiacanis (0.95%) with anoverall prevalence of 13.33%. The prevalence rate was higher in males (8.5%) than infemales (4.76%). The relation was not statistically significant.Infected dogs hadconsiderably lower mean hemoglobin levels than non-infected dogs.