Identifying Diseases of Golden Jackals of Bangladesh Agricultural University Campus, Mymensingh, Bangladesh

Abstract

Golden jackals is one of the semidomestic wild carnivors of the environment of Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) campus and now a days very often share spend their time with native dogs and cats in the gouse food wastes. This is not unusual for jackals to share diseases of dogs and cats. This study was aimed to identify important diseases of golden jackals and categorized to their zoonotic importance. A total of five apparently healthy golden jackals were collected from BAU campus and thorough postmortem examination was carried out during the period from July to December, 2010. Histopathological studies were conducted using routine Hematoxylin & Eosin procedure. The existence of blood parasites were studied by Giemsa’s staining. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) & Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) were adopted for the detection of tuberculosis (TB), canine distemper (CD) and avain influenza virus (AI). Other diseases investigated were liverfluke, whipworm, lungworm, mites and ascariasis. Out of five jackals examined, four were infected with heartworm Dirofilaria immitis. Gross examination of a Jackal at necropsy revealed nodular lesions in lungs and suspected as a case of TB. Acid fast staining and PCR protocol specific for TB could not detect mycobacterium in the nodular lungs lesions. Results of RT- PCR with the extracted RNA from liver showed amplification of 287bp fragment specific for CD viral infection in two cases. This is the first study in Bangladesh describing infection of CD in jackals. Jackals are scavanging in nature and reasonably AI could have present in jackals. RT-PCR protocol specific for matrix protein gene of AI viruses did not amplify any nucleic acid fragment. Results of this study showed that the golden jackals of BAU campus were infected with heartworm, lungworm, liverfluke, whipeworm, ascarids, mites and CD viruses. Extensive investigation is needed to explore the existance of few other important diseases of jackals including bovine and human TB, AI, leishmaniasis, rabies, Toxoplasmosis, Infectious canine hepatitis, Taeniasis and Canine hookworm infestation. heartworm, whipworm and mites have zoonotic importance, therefore, it needs to develop stretagy to prevent their future dessimination in human and other animals.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bjvm.v12i2.21295 Bangl. J. Vet. Med. (2014). 12 (2): 217-224