Comprehensive Clinical Studies of Babesia naoakii infection on Farmed Cattle from Central Java (Yogyakarta), Indonesia

Babesiosis is a disease caused by Babesia sp. and transmitted by a tick vector from the Ixodidae family. The report on cattle babesiosis occurrence in Central Java (Yogyakarta), which was related to clinical findings and laboratory examination, had not been published. This study aimed to obtain data on clinical and laboratory assessments of cattle babesiosis. The method was initiated by taking the history and physical examination of the cattle, laboratory
examination used blood smear with Giemsa 10% staining, hematology, urinalysis, and nested Polymerase Chain
Reaction (PCR) based on Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS1-5.8s) sequences. The obtained sequences were analyzed
with MEGA software. The microscopic result showed that 2.2% of samples were positive with Babesia sp. and 13.3%
positive with Babesia naoakii by nested PCR method. The clinical findings of cattle babesiosis in this study showed
a significant increase in temperature (33%), heart rate (30%), and respiration rate (16.5%). All the samples were pale in membrane mucous, and hemoglobinuria was absent. The hematology results showed 33.3% hypochromic normocytic anemia, 16.6% normochromic macrocytic anemia, 50% thrombocytopenia, 50% monocytosis, and 16.6% leucopenia. Phylogenetic analyses showed cattle babesiosis in this study was 98.82% similar to B naoakii sequences from Sri Lanka. To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive clinical study of the impact of B. naoakii infection in farmed cattle.