Prevalence of Neospora caninum antibodies in sheep flocks of Uberlândia county, MG

Abstract

Neosporosis is a parasitic disease that occurs in sheep and is associated with reproductive failure. The aim of this study was to verify seroprevalence of Neospora caninum antibodies in 12 sheep flocks in Uberlândia county, Minas Gerais, Brazil, using Indirect Immunofluorescence Assay (IFA). A total of 334 sheep blood samples were analyzed and an epidemiologic questionnaire was applied for each farm in order to correlate with risk factors of neosporosis: gender, age, breed, abortion problems, contact with cattle and dogs, and presence of wild canids. The prevalence of Neospora caninum antibodies in sheep was 8.1%, with titers ranging from 50 to 3200 and 83.3% of farms detected at least one ovine reactive. There was statistically significant difference in flocks with abortion problems associated with the presence of Neospora caninum antibodies (p < 0.05).

Occurrences of anti-Toxoplasma gondii and anti-Neospora caninum antibodies in sheep from four districts of Tocantins state, Brazilian Legal Amazon Region

“…The lack of association (p>0.05) between sheep seropositive for N. caninum and gender has also been observed in previous studies in Brazil (Romanelli et al 2007, Ueno et al 2009, Salaberry et al 2010, demonstrating that male and female are equal susceptible to infection. In this study, no significant association between herds with abortions and N. caninum (p>0.05) was observed.…”

Antibodies to Neospora caninum in sheep from slaughterhouses in the state of São Paulo, Brazil

“…The occurrence of infections by N. caninum is not influenced by breed, age or the number of animals in the herd (BARBER, 1998;BECK et al, 2010) and no evidence of any association was observed between these variables and the seropositivity in the studies conducted by Figliuolo et al (2004), Romanelli et al (2007), Soares et al (2009), Ueno et al (2009), Salaberry et al (2010 and Rossi et al (2011). However, in this study, a statistically significant difference was found between the serological results and breed, but not age.…”

“…Some studies in Brazil have reported low percentages of seropositive sheep with titers ≥ 50, as 8.1% (SALABERRY et al, 2010) in Minas Gerais, 9.2% (FIGLIUOLO et al, 2004) and 13.9% (MUNHÓZ et al, 2010) in São Paulo and 9.5% (ROMANELLI et al, 2007) in Paraná. In this study, considering as cut-off the titer of 50, the seropositivity decrease to 37.58% (224/596; 95%CI 33.79-41.45%), but stills remains higher than the other studies cited above.…”

Frecuencia de anticuerpos anti-Neospora caninum en ovinos del departamento de Córdoba, Colombia

“…En Brasil existen diversos reportes; en Uberlandia-MG donde un estudio realizado en 334 muestras reportó una prevalencia de anticuerpos del 8.1% en ovejas de las razas Santa Ines, Dorper y cruces de estas (19); en el estado de São Paulo de 597 muestras de suero de ovejas analizadas el 92% fueron positivas (20); en el estado de Paraná y específicamente en el municipio de Guarapuzva también 9.5% de ovejas de las razas Ile de France, Texel, Corriedale y Hampshire presentaron anticuerpos anti-N. Caninum (21); por otro lado en Brasilia de 1028 ovejas el 8.81% fueron seropositivas (22) y para el estado de Rondônia se reportó el 29% de los 141 sueros ovinos como positivos para la presencia de anticuerpos anti-N. Caninum (23).…”