Conditions Affecting the East Coast Fever Parasite in Ticks and In Cattle

Abstract

Lewis and Fotheringham (1941) showed thatTheileria parva, the causal protozoan parasite of East Coast fever of cattle, does not always live as long as the tick (Rhipicephalus appendiculatus) which it commonly infects. The results of their experiments indicated that batches of ticks which had been infected were incapable of transmitting East Coast fever after they had been kept unfed at room temperatures of19 0 to 220 C. (66 0 to 72 0 F.) for about350 days after moulting. Ticks, from the same infected batches, tested at short periods of starvation, invariably transmitted the disease when fed on susceptible cattle