Babesiose canina: um relato de caso sobre babesiose encefálica canina

Abstract

Babesiosis is a disease caused by protozoa of the genus Babesia spp. responsible for causing innumerable clinical signs from anemia to acute neurological signs in many animal species. It was first described in the bovine species in 1888, whose most prevalent clinical signs were fever and hematuria. The first record in dogs occurred a few years later, in 1896, in Africa, through the visualization of morphologically compatible intra-rythrocyte structures associated with clinical signs of hemolytic disease. The neurological form of babesiosis has already been described in cattle and dogs, being considered an atypical form of the disease, occurring in the minority of cases. The first report of brain babesiosis in dogs occurred in 1905, in France, where the animal had acute neurological symptoms with fatal evolution, but without understanding the mechanisms related to the formation of lesions. This study aimed to report the case of a canine affected by Babesiosis, which showed neurological clinical signs atypical to the pathology. It is suggested that Babesia may have affected the nervous system and caused neurological changes in the reported patient. The present work brings an alert to the importance of the junction between clinical diagnosis and laboratory diagnosis in the clinic of small animals.