Babesia canis vogeli: a novel PCR for its detection in dogs in Australia

Babesia canis vogeli is known to cause disease in dogs in Australia, and the rapid detection of various subspecies would enable effective treatment and management. A 21 bp oligonucleotide, "Bab-f" was proposed for the production of larger PCR products with high species specificity that would enable effective sequence analyses to yield subspecies identification. The new forward primer when paired with a previously reported "Babesia common" reverse primer generated a 394 bp product which was successfully amplified and provided subspecies differentiation by sequence analyses. Specificity and sensitivity were reported at 100% on a cohort of 55 dogs.