TY - JOUR AU - Irwin, Peter J. AU - Robertson, Ian D. AU - Westman, Mark E. AU - Perkins, Martine AU - Straubinger, Reinhard K. PY - 2017 DA - 2017/03/13 TI - Searching for Lyme borreliosis in Australia: results of a canine sentinel study JO - Parasites & Vectors SP - 114 VL - 10 IS - 1 AB - Lyme borreliosis is a common tick-borne disease of the northern hemisphere that is caused by bacterial spirochaetes of the Borrelia burgdorferi (sensu lato) (Bbsl) complex. To date, there has been no convincing evidence for locally-acquired Lyme borreliosis on the Australian continent and there is currently a national debate concerning the nature and distributions of zoonotic tick-transmitted infectious disease in Australia. In studies conducted in Europe and the United States, dogs have been used as sentinels for tick-associated illness in people since they readily contact ticks that may harbour zoonotic pathogens. Applying this principle, we used a combination of serological assays to test dogs living in tick ‘hot spots’ and exposed to the Australian paralysis tick, Ixodes holocyclus, for evidence of exposure to B. burgdorferi (s.l.) antigens and other vector-borne pathogens. SN - 1756-3305 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/s13071-017-2058-z DO - 10.1186/s13071-017-2058-z ID - Irwin2017 ER -