Bilal Aslam is checking his culture of Borrelia anserina by phase contrast microscopy. Bilal is Ph.D. student from the Inst. of Microbiology at the Univ. of Agriculture (Faisalabad, Pakistan).
Fowl spirochetosis, which is considered to be caused by Borrelia anserina, is an important disease in Asia, America and in the Middle East. The organism has never been isolated from Swedish birds, because the tick vector (Argas spp.) is not present in Northern Europe. Information about B. anserina, including phase contrast photomicrographs, has now been included in VetBact.
Bilal Aslam is working with a project on fowl spirochetosis and B. anserina, for a Ph.D. thesis in Pakistan. Bilal has spent 6 month at SVA (National Veterinary Institute, Uppsala, Sweden) to learn about molecular techniques for identification of microorganisms.
Muhammad Munir, who is Ph.D. student at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, BVF, has also contributed to the work on B. anserina.