Contagious ecthyma is an important viral disease infect animals' skin mostly small ruminants, it could infect other ruminants with a zoonotic pattern. In dromedary camels of Basrah province, Contagious ecthyma was detected and diagnosed. Seventy-eight local dromedary breeds, 2-6 years old show clinical manifestations of Anorexia and difficulty grazing, lesions of Contagious ecthyma appear as papules, vesicles, and scabs located at the upper and lower parts of the lips, commeasure and /or around the mouth, Furthermore, Lesions in the form of Fissures with lips edema was also detected on diseased camels.   Twenty, clinically healthy dromedaries served as controls. The infection was confirmed using the PCR technique.  Blood parameters with acute phase response have been also evaluated. Results indicated that diseased camels show different clinical manifestations belonging to contagious ecthyma with a significant increase in body temperature, heart and respiratory rate, Moreover, Leukocytosis due to lymphocytosis was detected in infected dromedaries. a significant increase in ESR was detected in infected dromedaries compared with controls. Results referred to an increase in haptoglobin and Fibrinogen in diseased dromedaries with contagious ecthyma compared to controls. The contagious ecthyma of camels was still circulating in Iraqi areas, where appropriate preventive measures must be taken to prevent the spread of disease among camel herds and reduce the resulting economic losses.

  The current study was designed to assess some critical mineral elements concentration in the serum of camels using advanced methods like Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy analysis (SEM-EDS) using scanning electron microscope of minute camel’s blood. The present study was conducted on forty-eight healthy adult males and females of camel (Camelus dromedarius) aged three to five years in three southern governorates of Iraq: Basra, Thi-Qar and Muthana (6 males and 10 females per governorate). Blood samples were applied to field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) to recognize the essential cellular morphological properties found in camel’s RBCs that assist camels to adaptation on harsh condition. While, serum was subsequently assayed for elemental analysis by energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). The SEM images of RBCs showed a smooth surface with a circumference invagination referred to tropical waist with difference in length and width of RBCs between male and female. While, EDS percentage atomic concentrations study of camel’s serum revealed different amount of essential, heavy and rare trace elements in both sexes from the Basra and Thiqar governorate and different levels in essential elements in the serum of both sexes of Thiqar and Muthana governorates.  

Evaluation of the real-time PCR, rose bengal test (RBT), competitive ELISA, and complement fixation test (CFT) was done on 335 camels sera. Real-time PCR, classified 335 camel serum samples to 268 (80%) as positive and 67 (20%) as negative. Real-time PCR, using species specific primers, distinguished 94/104 serum samples due to B. abortus, 4/104 samples due to B. melitensis and 6/104 due to mixed infection. The results of serological tests revealed that modified mRBT75 using 75 µl of serum, detected the highest number of positive samples 271 (80.9%), while 262 (78.2%), 257 (76.7%), 253 (75.5%) and 245 (73.1%) samples were found to be positive for brucellosis using CFT, cELISA, mRBT50, and RBT25, respectively. Compared to other serological tests, the CFT proved to have the best results in the criteria of test validations, namely; specificity (88%), PPV (96.9%), NPV (80.8%), PLR (7.9), NLR (0.06) and DOR (133.8). The Kappa (K) statistic agreements values between real-time PCR and rose bengal (RBT25), modified (mRBT50), (mRBT75), cELISA and CFT was 0.562 (± 0.053), 0.613 (± 0.052), 0.725 (± 0.048), 0.710 (± 0.047) and 0.801 (± 0.041), respectively. The authors recommend the use of real-time PCR on camel sera to confirm the disease.

Anaplasmosis is a tick-borne disease of ruminants and wild animals that caused by an intra erythrocytic bacterium, Anaplasma marginale. Under natural conditions, camels become infected in areas where the disease is endemic. Camels that survive from acute infection become carriers because of the capability of these bacteria to deception the immune system using antigenic variations. Although, several serological methods were concerned for Anaplasma marginale IgG antibodies detection, but the competitive indirect ELISA test was more sensitivity and specificity. The present study was conducted at Al-Najaf and Wasit provinces on 120 camels, selected randomly from both sexes and divided into two aged groups. The total sero positivity prevalence was (10.83%); and depending on provincial basis was (8.57%) in Al-Najaf and (14%) in Wasit provinces. Clinically, the sero positive prevalence two age groups (5 years old) had (6.67%) and (15%), respectively. No significant differences (P

The objective of this study was to characterize the highly elevated levels of clotting factor VIII (FVIII) in camel plasma. Whole blood was collected from healthy camels and factor VIII clotting activity (FVIII:C) assays were conducted using both the clotting and the chromogenic techniques. The anticoagulant citrate phosphate dextrose adenine (CPDA) produced the highest harvest of FVIII:C, the level of plasma factor VIII, compared to heparin:saline and heparin: CPDA anticoagulants. Camel FVIII can be concentrated 2 to 3 times in cryoprecipitate. There was a significant loss of camel FVIII when comparing levels of FVIII in camel plasma after 1 h of incubation at 37°C (533%), 40°C (364%), and 50°C (223%). Thrombin generation of camel plasma is comparable to that of human plasma. It was concluded that camel plasma contains very elevated levels of FVIII:C, approaching 8 times the levels in human plasma, and that these elevated levels could not be attributed to excessive thrombin generation. Unlike human FVIII:C, camel FVIII:C is remarkably heat stable. Taken together, these unique features of camel FVIII could be part of the physiological adaptation of hemostasis of the Arabian camel in order to survive in the hot desert environment.