Short communicationThe first finding of Neospora caninum and the occurrence of other abortifacient agents in sheep in Slovakia
Introduction
Embryonic mortality and foetal death are two of the most important forms of reproductive failures. They cause not only the loss of offspring and an increased lambing interval, but other negative factors such as increased culling, reduced milk production and the reduced value of breeding stock. Parasites transmitted from infected ruminants via the food may involve a considerable public health risk. Therefore, rapid and accurate diagnosis is important in order to assess the degree of risk caused by potential abortifacients, mainly with zoonotic potential, such as Chlamydophila abortus (Chlamydia psittaci), Coxiella burnetti, Toxoplasma gondii, Brucella spp., Campylobacter spp., Salmonella spp. and Listeria monocytogenes (Ortega-Mora et al., 2007). Despite Neospora caninum is not currently considered to be zoonotic, but the economical losses and reduction of animal welfare caused by this parasite are also important factors to evaluate the risk of the infection.
The protozoan intracellular parasite N. caninum is considered as an important cause of reproductive disease in some dairy and beef herds and has a negative economic impact on their breeding worldwide. Transplacental transmission of N. caninum is the most efficient mode of the infection a new hosts and this can occur in successive pregnancies and over several generations (Dubey and Lindsay, 1996). Neosporosis emerged also in Slovakia. According to the current serological data in Eastern Slovakia as much as 20.1% of mean seropositivity against N. caninum in aborting cattle has been recorded (Reiterová et al., 2009).
Taking into account the relatively high occurrence of neosporosis in cattle herds in Slovakia, the aim of the present study was to determine the prevalence of anti-N. caninum antibodies in aborting sheep in different districts of eastern Slovakia and to compare these with the occurrence of other potential abortifacient agents (T. gondii, C. abortus and Leptospira sp.) in small ruminants.
Section snippets
Serum samples of sheep
In the period 2007–2008, a total of 382 sera from the dairy sheep (Ovis aries) post-abortion from different farms of ten districts of two Eastern Slovak regions were collected. Sera of 313 sheep originated from 74 farms of the five districts situated south-easterly, which belong to the region of Košice. From the second, northern region of Prešov, from five districts, 69 sera of aborting sheep were collected altogether from 26 farms. Animals from the Košice region were divided into two groups
Results
Out of 313 sera of aborting sheep, examined from five districts of the south-eastern region, 12 sera were Neospora-positive (3.8%) (Table 1). From these seropositive animals two sheep belonged into the Group 1 with one abortion (1.7%) and as many as ten sheep were from the Group 2, with more than one abortion (3.2%). According to the character of breed, seven sheep of Improved Valachian, four of the Merino and one of Tsigai breed were detected as seropositive. Respecting the frequency of
Discussion
Sheep breeding is an important sector of Slovak agriculture, which is determined by natural conditions mainly in mountain and sub-mountain regions. Up to now, neosporosis in sheep is understudied in comparison with cattle. The first finding of 3.7% of mean N. caninum seroprevalence in aborting sheep from eastern Slovakia is in accordance with results of authors from other countries. Vogel et al. (2006) in 62 sheep without reproductive problems found 3.2% N. caninum seroprevalence in Brasil. In
Acknowledgements
Work supported by the Slovak Grant Agency VEGA, Grant No. 2/0069/08.
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