Until July 30th, 2019 when the first case of African swine fever (ASF) was confirmed, Serbia was a country free from ASF. After the owner reported atypical illness and death of a sow, the local veterinarian submitted the organ samples to the National Reference Laboratory for Classical Swine Fever (CSF) and African Swine Fever within the Institute of Veterinary Medicine of Serbia in Belgrade. Observed gross lesions included splenomegaly, serous edema of the wall of the gallbladder and hemorrhages in the enlarged portal lymph nodes, petechial hemorrhages on the kidney and epicardium, and petechial and echymotic hemorrhages on the mucosa of the urinary bladder. Results of real-time PCR confirmed that the cause of illness and death of the swine was African swine fever virus. The samples were sent for confirmation to the EU Reference Laboratory where it was confirmed that Serbian domestic pig virus isolates based on p72 belong to genotype II. In total, 270 pigs from 18 affected holdings were killed in the infected zones. According to the on-record data, mortality was 6.89%, whereas lethality reached 64.5%. Currently, an extensive surveillance program is being conducted, aiming to force passive surveillance. ASF in wild boar has not been confirmed so far.
Porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) and hepatitis E virus (HEV) are the most recently recognized causes of infectious hepatitis of pigs and may or may not act independently in the development of the disease. Recently it has been suggested that swine torque teno viruses (TTVs), in co-infections with some swine viral pathogens, may potentiate the severity of disease. In order to search for virological cofactors associated with infectious hepatitis in pigs, we investigated the liver tissues, to determine the presence of TTVs, PCV2 and HEV of naturally infected pigs and analysed the prevalence of both genogroups of the TTVs in the hepatitis lesions. Histopathological techniques, nested-polymerase chain reactions (nPCRs), polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and one-step reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) were applied to detect hepatitis lesions, TTVs genogroups 1 and 2, PCV2 and HEV infection. Of the livers examined 58% (29/50) had mild to moderate hepatitis and 74% (37/50), 56% (28/50) and 26% (13/50) samples were nPCR, PCR and RT-PCR positive for TTVs PCV2 and HEV respectively. TTVs were detected in 84% (16/19) of the samples which were determined to be of mild severity while present in almost all (90% or 9/10) samples identified as having moderate hepatitis lesions. Additionally, the livers of 12 out of 21 (57%) pigs without the hepatitis lesions were positive for TTVs. These results demonstrate an association between TTVs and infectious hepatitis of pigs in concomitant infections with PCV2 and/or HEV and indicated that TTVs may play a role as a cofactor in the pathogenesis of disease.
Bovine herpesvirus type 4 (BHV-4) is related to many different conditions: infertility, postpartal metritis, vulvovaginitis, mastitis, encephalitis, calf pneumonia, keratoconjunctivitis, cutaneous lesions, digital dermatitis and abortion. In this study a retrospective PCR examination of 100 extracted DNA samples from aborting cows was performed in order to determine: prevalence of BHV-4 in abortive cattle, whether coinfections BHV-4 with other abortifacient pathogens are present in the same sample and to determine the month of gestation when BHV-4 associated abortions were detected. Out of 100 examined samples, the BHV-4 genome was detected in 21 samples (21%). In two samples we detected coinfection of BHV-4 with bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) and in one with Neospora caninum. Most of the BHV-4-associated abortions were detected during the seventh month of gestation. It was concluded that an active BHV-4 infection was present among cows that aborted on the farms examined. The high prevalence of the BHV-4 genome in abortion material suggests that this virus may have cause the abortions. Further studies and examinations are needed to establish causative connection between presence of BHV-4 and abortion.
The aim of this study was to assess the significance of body condition scoring and metabolic profile test for estimation of energy status of healthy high-yielding dairy cows. Twenty one healthy cows (primiparous and secundiparous) were divided into three groups: dry cows, early puerperal cows and early lactating cows. Cow's energy status was estimated by the analysis of blood samples for beta-hydroxybutirate (BHBA) and glucose. Additionally, urea, total bilirubine and total protein were measured in blood serum samples. According to body condition scores (BCS) results dry cows were overweight (4.03±0.29 points). Immediately after calving, cows lost their weight significantly, since BCS was 2.85±0.46 points at puerperal period and 3.12±0.33 points at day 60 of lactation (p<0.001 compared to dry period, respectively). Glucose concentration did not change significantly between dry and puerperal period, while BHBA increased significantly (0.46±0.14 mmol/l at dry period to 1.08±0.21 mmol/l at puerperal period; p<0.001). Urea concentration did not change significantly during examined period. Total bilirubin concentration significantly increased from dry (6.31±0.37 mmol/l) to puerperal period (7.63±2.52 mmol/l; p<0.001 compared to dry period) and remained high until day 60 of lactation (7.62±0.13 mmol/l; p<0.001 compared to dry period). Total protein concentration decreased from dry to puerperal period (69.59±6.14 g/l to 58.87±3.29 g/l; p<0.001). According to obtained results it can be concluded that cows were not in adequate energy status during transition period. Our results also indicate that, body condition scoring, BHBA and total bilirubin concentrations can be used as reliable indicators of cow's energy status even when there are not clinically visible health disorders.
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