Tick-associated diseases identified from hunting dogs during the COVID-19 pandemic in a Mayan community in Yucatan, Mexico

Hunting activity in the Mayan communities has increased due to COVID-19 and domestic dogs have gained more importance. Due to their proximity to humans, domestic dogs are a bridge between tick-borne diseases (TBDs) and humans and their peri-domestic environment. In Mexico, and especially in rural regions, there were not adequate records of TBDs during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Identify TBD of ticks collected during the COVID-19 pandemic in a rural community. Tick capture was carried out in March 2021, in Teabo, Yucatan. Ticks were removed using from domestic dogs and placed in ethanol. Collected ticks were morphologically identified and underwent DNA extraction and a partial segment of the mitochondrial 16S-rDNA gene was amplified to corroborate the tick species. The DNA was screened for the presence of spp., spp., spp., and spp. Purified amplification products were submitted for sequencing and the results were compared to those deposited in GenBank using BLAST. We collected 33 ectoparasites, , , and on 11 hunting dogs. The most frequent ectoparasite was (66%). We detected the presence of DNA of in and in . presented a similarity of 100% with the partial sequence of of isolate IACACTM001 16S ribosomal RNA gene and the sequence of had a similarity of 100% with the partial sequence of the isolate 23-33TX 16S ribosomal RNA gene of from dogs from Texas, USA and with the partial sequence of the isolate L134 16S ribosomal RNA gene of from dogs from Piura, Peru. We confirmed for the first time the presence of in and in ticks from dogs in the state of Yucatan.