Prevalence of Haemosporidian parasites of Chukar Partridge Birds in Sulaimani Province/Kurdistan Region of Iraq

مدلا تايليفطراشتنإ ةظفاحم يف لجحلارويط يف قارعلا / ناتسدرك ميلقا / ةيناميلسلا

distribution, especially in warm and temperate climate (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). Also, they are intracellular protozoa found within the blood cells and tissues of their avian hosts belonging to the genera Plasmodium, and Haemoproteus(5, 7, 8). They are found in several organs, including heart, lung, liver, spleen, kidney, brain, gizzard and intestine in most cases and in some also skeletal muscle and bursa of Fabricius (9). The sporozoite that is available in the salivary glands of the insect vector is considered as an infective stage (10). Interactions of the blood parasite have been the topic of many ecological and evolutionary documents (11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19). However, enough data about prevalence and distribution of avian Haematozoa from many regions of the world is not available, especially from the Middle East (20, 21). In Iraq, only a few surveys have been conducted to cover the information of bird parasites. The red-legged partridge (Alectoris Chukar) is a non-migratory bird found mainly in the North part of Iraq (Kurdistan region). It is the most important bird in this region they had been used for eating, singing and as game birds. Thus, in this current work, we aimed to investigate and examine wild birds for Haematozoa parasite intensively.

Animals of the Study
A total of 100 apparently healthy chukar partridge birds ( Fig.1) of different ages were randomly captured alive, kept in cages, and marked with serially numbered bands to avoid multiple sampling between periods from April 2016 to the end of September 2016 in three different localities of the Sulaimaniyah Province/Kurdistan Region, Northern Iraq which includes Darbandixan, Qaradax and Bamo (Fig. 2).

Sampling
After the wing vein (brachial vein) was cleaned with 70% ethyl alcohol, approximately, 1.0 mL of blood was collected for each sample provided with two blood smears for morphologic identification of haemoparasites. Blood films were air-dried within 5-10 min, fixed in absolute methanol for 5 minutes and then stained with Giemsa(3%) working solution from for 50 min, then the excess stain was washed off with buffered water and left to dry. Blood films were examined under oil immersion (100×), counting smaller Haematozoa in 100 microscopic fields (24,25).

Results and Discussion
A total of 200 thin blood smears, from 100 partridges (two blood smear for each bird), were examined, and 60 (60%) were infected by at least one blood parasite. The prevalence of infection by Plasmodium spp. was highest 46 (46%), and Haemoproteus spp. was 12 (12%) for each one of them. Also, a mixed infection was found with Plasmodium spp. and Haemoproteus spp. in one sample only 2 (2%) (Table1). None of the infected birds in the present study had shown any clinical signs of disease. The sexual forms of both Plasmodium spp. and Haemoproteus spp.are almost similar, thus to avoid misevaluation of these 2 species, Plasmodium spp. was identified by the presence of both schizonts and round or enlarged gametocytes in the blood smear (Fig.  3, 4, and 5), while Haemoproteus spp. are characterized by the presence of only enlarged (halteridium) or round gametocytes in blood smear (Fig. 6).

Discussion
Haemosporidians are one of the most familiar and well-studied groups of parasites because they include the causative factor of human malaria (5). Till now, studies in Kurdistan Region-Iraq trailed to elucidate the infection of blood protozoa in chickens and turkeys, being 17.36 % and 19 %, respectively (26,27), but no attempt was carried out to investigate the presence of blood protozoa in partridges, and this was the objective of the study. The obtained data revealed an indication of the infection with blood parasites in chukar partridges in Sulaimani province/Kurdistan Region-Iraq. In the present study, Plasmodium, and Haemoproteus protozoan parasite were identified in partridges. Out of the total examined birds (100) in this study, 60(60%) were infected at least with one of the protozoan parasite this result concurs with prevalence reported by (28) that was (60%), and was relatively high compared to that previously reported (32.9%, 3.91%) from southern Iran (29, 30), (7.7%) in Iraq (31),

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Issue:2, (2019) ISSN: P-1999:6527 E-2707:0603 (5.9%) in Japan (32) and (6.2%) in Bulgaria (33).The high prevalence rate of blood parasites (60%) in the studied regions of Sulaimani Province, North of Iraq, maybe due to appropriate environmental conditions for vectors as well as the large population of free-ranging poultry in the area where they kept in free-range systems or on pastures are more exposed to vectors. Forty six samples (46%) were diagnosed to be infected with Plasmodium spp. which was relatively higher than that reported previously in other countries (29,34), (2.34%,4.6%),whereas 12% of the blood samples, were positive for Haemoproteus spp. that was in agreements with the results recorded in Portugal (35), in which they found that 12%, of the birds were infected with Haemoproteus spp. and in Pakistan (36) which was revealed that 12.2% of the pigeons were infected with Haemoproteus spp. and higher than some other researches (37,38,39) in which they found that(6.6%) were positive for Haemoproteus spp. Simultaneously, our result is lower than those records in Nigeria (40),in Slovakia (41) in Iran (42), in Ankara District (43), various areas of Iran (44,45,46), which were revealed 14%, 56.6%,47.05%, 50%, 57%, 24%, 30% ,and17.47%, respectively. On the other hands, in Slovakia revealed high infection rates (21 %) that may be due to the high level of blood parasite vectors that is available at the hot seasons (47). Finally, we found that no obvious clinical signs were observed in infected partridges, which might be due to low numbers of parasite in the blood and potent bird immunity against parasites. Conclusion From the results of the study, it was clear that partridges can be infected with Plasmodium, and Haemoproteus blood parasites and it can be a source of infection to other domestic and wild birds and that will lead to the economic loss of poultry in our country.