Sheep abortion – a roundtable discussion

Abstract

Foreword Abortion takes a heavy toll on the sheep industry, not only economically, but in emotional terms too. Enzootic abortion in ewes is consistently the most frequent diagnosis followed in descending order by infection with Toxoplasma gondii, Campylobacter spp., Salmonella spp. and Listeria spp. Causes of abortion also lead to increased barren rates, and the birth of weak lambs, so the impact of these pathogens is greater than just abortion. Fortunately there are vaccines for the two most common causes of abortion, providing farmers and the veterinary surgeons advising them with effective and sustainable tools in the control of enzootic abortion and toxoplasmosis. The uptake of these vaccines, however, remains lower than might reasonably be expected. In this roundtable discussion the barriers to the implementation of the extant measures of abortion control were discussed and suggestions made as to how abortion can better be prevented.

Relationship between infection with Campylobacteriosis and genital disorder in ewes

“…The detected rate is less than the rate that recorded in Iran which is 50.6% (10).In the current study, the difference between infection recoded in compare with other study may due to geographic differences in the study area, seasonal of the study, techniques used in diagnosis, clinical signs management and control programs (11).The current study showed that high relationship between Campylobacter infection and placenta retention, that's due to the ability of Campylobacter to cause placentitis and the cotyledons separate easily from the caruncles. In addition, the placentitis lead to fibroblast activation which produce fibrin that leads to the attachment of placenta on uterus (12,13).The present study showed that 75% of abortion cases diagnosis as campylobacter infection were suffering from recurrent abortion, that's may due to other causes of previous abortion such as Brucella, Salmonella, Toxoplasma and non-infection causes or due to expos to high dosage of bacteria by contact with aborted fetus, placenta, and uterine discharges (14,15).Campylobacter spp. are common abortion causes in ewes, most abortion cases occur at the twelfth week of pregnancy and after 7-25 days after infection (17).…”

Current state of knowledge regarding bacterially-induced abortion in sheep

“…This rate has remained constant over time, with only 596 cases of ovine abortion diagnoses being attributed to Listeria spp. in the United Kingdom between 2002 -2019 [69].…”