Coxiella burnetii Detection in Stray Dogs in Klang Valley, Malaysia

Aims: Coxiella burnetii is a tick-borne pathogen that may cause clinical disease in a number of animals including dogs. C. burnetii has garnered attention as a zoonotic agent. With the increasing contact between dogs and humans through ownership of pets and the growing stray dog population, it is alarming how there is still a paucity of information concerning this pathogen in stray dogs in Klang Valley, Malaysia.

Methods: In order to determine the rate of infection of Q fever, blood and ticks were collected from stray dogs from animal shelters and dog pounds and screened for htpAB-associated repetitive element of Coxiella burnetii using nested PCR. Chi-square test was used to establish the association or differences among/between proportions of the categories (age, breed and sex) at the significance level of α=0.05.

Results: C. burnetii was detected in 62 (33%) of the blood samples out of 188 total population and non of the tick samples collected tested positive. Comparison based on age showed young dogs to have a high prevalence of 35.7% (95%CI, 0.07-0.64) than adults (32.8%, 95%CI, 0.26-0.40). According to breed, the local breed had a higher infection rate (33.2%, 95%CI, 0.26-0.40) than pedigree dogs (25.0%, 95%CI, -0.55-1.05) and based on sex, male dogs had a higher infection rate (34.3%, 95%CI, 0.21-0.42) than their female counterparts (31.3%, 95%CI, 0.25-0.44). However, there was no significant difference P > 0.05 between all the three factors observed for Coxiella burnetii.

Conclusion: This study found Coxiella burnetii present in Klang Valley, therefore necessitate action against stray dogs population to avoid shedding or contamination of the organism in environments and transmission to naive animals and humans.