Theileria camelensis, piroplasma spp., babesia spp. have been recovered from blood of dromedaries and Bactrian but they are non-pathogenic. Old world camels contrary to cattle and small stock seems not to be affected by serious tick-borne diseases such as East Coast Fever, Piroplasmosis, Anaplasmosis
After 3 months the answer seems clear: for all practical purposes there are no tick borne diseases affecting dromedaries/camels. The so called "tick paralysis" is simply extreme emaciation that make the animals, often weaning calves or immature, too weak (because of malnutrition or concurrent diseases such as trypanosomosis, worms ) to stand up. The fact that such animals are often also heavily infested with ecto-parasites explains the origin of the "tick paralysis" belief.
Quote from our published article on camels piroplasms.
"T. camelensis is generally thought to be non-pathogenic, except in a few studies such as Hamidinejat et al (2008) who reported common signs of bovine tropical theileriosis in 2 camels and observed rapid recovery after buparvaquone treatment".
Ref: Hamidinejat H, Razi Jalali MH and Nouri M (2008). Report of clinical theileriosis in one- humped camel (Camelus dromedarius) in Khuzestan Province, Iran. Proceedings of the 15th Veterinary Congress of Iran, Iran.
More references:
Hamed, M.I., Zaitoun, A.M.A., El-Allawy, T.A.A., Mourad, M.I. (2011). Investigation of Theileria camelensis in camels infested by Hyalomma dromedarii ticks in Upper Egypt. Journal of Advanced Veterinary Research, 1(1): 4-7.
Ismael, A.B., Swelum, A.A., Khalaf, A.F., Abouheif, M.A. (2013). Clinical, haematological and biochemical alterations associated with an outbreak of theileriosis in dromedaries (Camelus dromedarius) in Saudi Arabia. In-Press in Pakistan Veterinary Journal.
Dear Alireza, thank you for the interesting references.
The study from Pakistan report no mortality and the large majority of the infected animals showed only mild symptoms and interestingly mentioned that "Mixed infections of Theileria with other pathogens.... gastrointestinal nematodes and Balantidium coli, gave approximately the same picture as infection with Theileria alone" . The study from Saudi Arabia quote only 13 % of morbidity rate and the clinical symptoms exhibited seemed not serious. Both studies do not mention "tick-paralysis".
These studies by large confirm what I am saying: camels may certainly get infected with tick-born pathogens but normally they do not show severe clinical signs and do not die.
Firstly I'm not sure if we should expect tick paralysis in camels!
Secondly, only experimental infection of camels with already confirmed species (T. equi, B. cabali, T. mutans and T. annulata) can clear that whether camels are host of piroplasmids or just accidentally bitten by infected vectors.
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