Serological survey ofToxoplasma gondiiandCampylobacter fetus fetusin sheep from New Zealand

Abstract

Further studies are required to confirm the clinical significance of flock-based antibody responses, and to validate their use in identifying recently aborted ewes, especially where there are no aborted fetuses for examination.

Quantifying the Risk of Human Toxoplasma gondii Infection Due to Consumption of Domestically Produced Lamb in the United States

“…However, a toxoplasmosis outbreak associated with eating raw lamb was reported in Australia in 1984; it involved five family members (5). In another study, 1,917 (85%) of 2,254 blood samples from ewes (sheep older than 1 year) raised in New Zealand were seropositive for T. gondii (4). Given lambs in Australia and New Zealand are mostly raised on open pasture (33) where exposure to a potentially oocystcontaminated environment is continuous, T. gondii prevalence in sheep and lambs raised in these two countries could be higher than in U.S. domestically raised lambs.…”

Toxoplasma gondii in Meat and Food Safety Implications - A Review

“…In Europe, data available in sheep report seropositive rates of 16-66% (Tenter et al, 2000;Dumètre et al, 2006;Pinheiro et al, 2009;Panadero et al, 2010;Pikka et al, 2010). High seroprevalences were found also in Bangladesh (40%) (Shahiduzzaman et al, 2011), and in New Zealand (61%) (Dempster et al, 2011). Seropositivity is found correlated with age, increasing from lambs (22%) to ewes (65.6%) (Dumetre et al, 2006) and also differences among different geographical areas were found (Panadero et al, 2010).…”

Perceived importance of areas of future research: results from a survey of sheep farmers

“…Presumably this reflects the perceived economic implications of reproductive wastage in combination with the high prevalence of abortive agents, such as Salmonella Brandenburg, Toxoplasma gondii and Campylobacter fetus fetus, reported in survey flocks (Kerslake & Perkins 2006;Dempster et al 2011). However, the frequency of these suggestions is a point of interest considering that in section two of this survey just 20%, 66% and 57% of respondents indicated the use of vaccines against salmonella, toxoplasmosis and campylobacter, respectively, in the past 3 years (Corner-Thomas et al 2013).…”