Heartwater is an infectious, noncontagious, tickborne rickettsial disease of ruminants. The disease is seen only in areas infested by ticks of the genus\u00a0Amblyomma<\/i>. It is\u00a0one of the most important\u00a0diseases of livestock in Africa. This tick-borne illness can significantly decrease\u00a0productivity in regions where it is endemic.<\/p>\n
It is particularly serious in non-indigenous\u00a0livestock that are moved into heartwater areas; leading to the death of many of these animals. Wild ruminants can also be infected. Most wildlife species appear to carry the\u00a0organism asymptomatically.<\/p>\n
The mean incubation period in natural infections is\u00a0approximately 2-3 weeks (14 days in small ruminants and 18 days in cattle). Some infections can become apparent as late as 4-5 weeks after exposure.<\/p>\n
Ticks become infected by feeding\u00a0on acutely ill or sub clinically infected animals. Infected animals\u00a0can continue to carry the organism at low\u00a0levels for a time after recovery; reports of the carrier state\u00a0after natural or experimental infections range from a month\u00a0or two to almost a year.<\/p>\n
For treatment, Tetracyclines are reported to be effective in the early\u00a0stage of the disease. Prolonged treatment and\/or larger\u00a0doses may be needed if treatment is started later, and\u00a0antibiotics are often ineffective once neurological signs\u00a0appear. Treated animals can\u00a0remain carriers.<\/p>\n
Supportive treatment (fluids, nutritional support) may\u00a0also be needed. and additional drugs may be indicated to
\ntreat or mitigate conditions such as peripheral vascular\u00a0collapse, increased capillary permeability, edema and
\nconvulsions. Animals should be kept quiet and undisturbed,\u00a0in comfortable surroundings; stimuli may elicit fatal
\nconvulsions.<\/p>\n
To control, report the disease, even if you are suspecting, to relevant authorities as soon as it is diagnosed. A quick response is vital for containing outbreaks in\u00a0regions free of heartwater, particularly where potential tick\u00a0vectors exist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Heartwater is an infectious, noncontagious, tickborne rickettsial disease of ruminants. The disease is seen only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diseases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaguzafarm.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaguzafarm.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaguzafarm.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaguzafarm.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaguzafarm.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jaguzafarm.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaguzafarm.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaguzafarm.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaguzafarm.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaguzafarm.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}