Scientists at Tyumen State Medical University in Russia have made an important discovery related to three new species of dangerous ticks inhabiting the country that have the ability to transmit deadly diseases such as plague and West Nile fever, a disease of the nervous system. This information has been reported by RIA Novosti.
The identified ticks are widely distributed in Siberia and Mongolia, as a statement issued by the study and published in the Persian Journal of Acarology explained.
The scientists concluded that these parasites could be considered new species after examining a wide variety of scientific literature, including books in Chinese and Japanese.
The study identified the parasites as belonging to two families: Spinturnicidae and Macronyssidae. Members of the first family are known to carry diseases such as bartonellosis (Carrion disease, La Oroya fever, and Peruvian wart), while those of the second family are responsible for a number of dangerous natural focal infections, such as tick-borne encephalitis, Lyme disease, West Nile fever, hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome, tularemia (bacterial infection in wild rodents), and plague, explained Maria Orlova, associate professor at Tyumen Medical University.
Bat parasites, such as ticks, fleas, and blood-sucking flies, are known to play an active role in the spread of many infections within bat colonies.
In 2020, scientists discovered one of the described arthropods while examining the alcohol-preserved bat collections of the Moscow State University Zoological Museum. The other ticks were found in the wild in the Russian republics of Buryatia and Tuva, captured on bats by the researchers.
The researchers argue that morphologically, these arthropods are different from those previously described and that they belong to an ecosystem located further south in the Asian part of Russia, presumably in China. Therefore, in the future, they plan to collaborate with Chinese experts in this area.
The next step in the research will be to study the molecular genetics of these newly discovered species to determine their relationship to those already known. In addition, the scientists intend to investigate the involvement of these ticks in the spread of various infections.
Saturday, September 7, 2024