Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato and Borrelia miyamotoi in questing ticks and tick fauna of companion animals in East Germani

Abstract

Ticks are blood sucking arthropods, responsible for the transmission of a wide range of viral, bacterial as well as protozoan infectious agents. Not only humans might be affected but also domesticated and wild animal species. Tick-borne diseases are of increasing importance nowadays, not only in Germany but all around the world. Lyme borreliosis (LB) is one of the most common tick-borne diseases with an increased incidence of infections amongst human beings. However, also other vector-borne diseases occur in an increasing number because of several ecological and epidemiological factors such as transportation of domestic animals. The latter fact is mainly due to increasing tick numbers that could be detected, mainly because of global warming, agricultural changes or other socioeconomic factors (Hartmann, 2013; Rizzoli et al. 2014).