Epidemiology and diagnosis of rickettsioses in animal hosts and tick vectors

Rickettsioses are emerging and reemerging vector-borne global diseases with zoonotic importance. The aim of this review is to give an overview on the epidemiology and diagnosis of rickettsial infec-tion in animal hosts and tick vectors. In this review, some studies found out that companion animals such as dogs, horses and camels could serve as reservoirs or carriers of the disease. The dogs are mainly infested by Rhipicephalus sanguineus ticks that are the main vectors of Rickettsia conorii, while horses and camels can be infested by other ixodid tick genera such as Hyalomma and Am-blyomma which are vectors of Rickettsia africae beside other Rickettsia species in Africa including Egypt. The review also discusses the history of the disease, taxonomy, geographical distribution, prevalence, mode of infection and transmission, reservoirs or carriers, animal or tick susceptibility, pathogenesis, traditional and molecular diagnosis for rickettsiae and their tick vectors. Therefore, people dealing with animals such as farmers and veterinarians shoud be aware for the risk of expo-sures to ticks that may be infected with rickettsiae. Control tick programmes have to be applied from time to time to avoid any rickettsial infection to animals and humans.