The Occurrence of Tick-Borne Pathogens in Samples Collected from the West Pomeranian Voivodeship

Abstract

In this work, ticks were collected from the military area of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland, and the most important pathogens were detected using the real-time PCR method. The ticks were collected in mid-spring (April and May) using the flagging technique. They were collected in five places: on the shoreline of Drawa River and Konotop Lake, as well as in forest and meadow areas near Karwice, Konotop and Oleszno Villages. During the work, only one species of ticks was caught – Ixodes ricinus. All the collected specimens were assessed in terms of their species, sex and developmental stage by zoological specialists. The largest number of specimens was caught in Karwice (35%, n = 666). The highest number of ticks in each test site were nymphs (57%, n = 1106), except at Konotop. The reaction of RT-PCR was tested in 111 pools of ticks. As a result of the PCR reactions (VIASURE Tick-Borne Diseases Real-Time PCR Detection Kit), Rickettsia spp. (n = 70) and Borrelia burgdorferi s. l. (n = 35) were determined to be the most frequently identified pathogens in the tick samples. Other pathogens such as Anaplasma phagocytophilum and Ehrlichia chaffeensis were detected in a smaller number of samples. The results in this paper confirm the epidemiological data collected and analysed prior to now.