Prevalence of Equine Piroplasmosis in and Around Junagadh in Horses

Equine piroplasmosis (EP), also called babesiosis is a notifiable disease of equines. In the early nineties, equine piroplasmosis was not recognized as a different disease and was often confused with other diseases of equines. To be familiar with the epidemiological status of equine piroplasmosis in horses, retrospective information was retrieved by scrutinizing the data bank of the Teaching Veterinary Clinical Complex, Junagadh for two years (Jan 2017 to Dec 2018) covering 711 equine cases. According to symptoms, the incidence of equine piroplasmosis was 20.00% (41/205) among equine medicinal cases (205/711; 28.83%), of which 63.41% (26/41) were confirmed on blood smear examinations. Symptomatically, the age-wise incidence was higher in adult horses (68.29%), followed by yearlings (17.07%). The breed-wise incidence of equine piroplasmosis was higher in Kathiawari breed (53.65%), followed by Marwari (26.83%) and non-descript (12.20%). The sex-wise incidence was higher in females (85.37%). The season-wise incidence of equine piroplasmosis was the highest during summer (39.02%), followed by monsoon (36.59%) and winter (24.39%). The highest occurrence was in June. The findings showed the susceptibility of age, breed, sex of horses, and the seasonal influence on the prevalence of equine piroplasmosis for anticipated preventive measures.