VECTOR-BORNE PATHOGENS-TESTING IN A ROMANIAN CANINE BLOOD BANK

INTRODUCTION: Canine blood banking in veterinary medicine is an expanding market. Once the demand for blood products increased all over the world, canine blood banks have focused attention on the risk of spreading diseases through blood transfused products. The need to preserve a healthy donor-pool, free of blood-borne infectious diseases, mainly in endemic areas, led to the implementation of appropriate protocols for screening canine blood donors using specific tests. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to evaluate the presence of Anaplasma phagocytophilum/Anaplasmaplatys , Echrlichiacanis/Echrlichiaewingii , Dirofilariaimmitis and Borrelia burgdorferi using the enzyme immunoassay technology (EIA) among the donors of a Romanian canine blood bank, from January 2015 to December 2016. METHODS: Blood samples from 575 donors were collected and 1253 tests were performed with SNAP 4DX Plus® (IDEXX Laboratories, Fremont, CA) to reveal the presence of D. immitis antigens and the antibodies toward A. phagocytophilum and/or A. platys , E. canis and/or E. ewingii and B. burgdorferi . RESULTS: The results of this holistic approach show that all blood samples provided negative results for B. burgdorferi and E.canis/E. ewingii (0/1253), while 0.87% (11/1253) samples provided positive results for A. phagocytophilum/A. platys and 6.94% (87/1253) for D. immitis . CONCLUSION: The next studied topic would be to compare the results provided by the EIA technology with results of real time PCR and qPCR regarding these vector-borne pathogens.