DISTRIBUTION OF TICKS AND THEIR ASSOCIATION WITH BORRELIA IN SEMNAN PROVINCE

Abstract

A faunistic study was carried out to estimate the frequency and distribution of different species of ticks and their association with intermittent relapsing fever, in 1995. In this study, during a course of 18 months, 78 villages were examined in 4 towns and 11 cities. Totally 5938 soft and hard ticks were collected from different habitats, mostly human dwellings and stables. After microscopic examination using a morphological discriminative key, four and three species of soft and hard ticks harbouring Borrelia spp. were identified as well. The distribution of ticks in proportion to whole area was 6.5% per Km for all species which was divided to 3.6% and 2.9% ticks per km for soft and hard ticks, respectively. The rate of infection among Tholozani ticks by Borrelia persica was 36.6%.