The incidence of theilerial parasites in East African buffalo (Syncerus caffer).

245 buffalo from 13 areas of East Africa were examined for theilerial infections. The vast majority of buffalo (97.1%) examined had piroplasms in their erythrocytes. Theileria lawrencei was isolated from the buffalo by tick feeding and cell culture and was found to be common in most of these buffalo populations. Also over 50% of the buffalo had indirect fluorescent antibody (IFA) titres to T. lawrencei. T. mutans was only isolated from 3 buffalo populations but is probably common. Haematoxenus sp. was detected in the blood of 56% of the buffalo sampled. In the light of these results the role of buffalo as a reservoir of cattle pathogenic theilerioses in East Africa is discussed.