Challenge of foot-and-mouth disease vaccine on sheep.
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Visna-like disease was diagnosed in a 4-year-old Mouflon ram from a Minnesota flock. The diagnosis was based on the unique distribution pattern of histologic lesions in the brain. Although visna is rarely diagnosed in the United States, this case illustrates that it should not be overlooked in differential diagnosis of neurologic disorders in sheep.
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The prevalence of trypanosomosis was studied during April-June 1991, in sheep and goats kept peridomestically in Alkaleri and Gombe local Government areas of Bauchi State in Northern Nigeria. A total of 615 animals. consisting of 258 sheep and 357 goats were examined for trypanosome infection. Of this total, 19 (7.4%) sheep and 18 (5.0%) goats were positive giving a total infection rate of 37 (6.0%), 22 being positive with Trypanosoma vivax, 9 with T. congolense and 6 with T. brucei. In order to elucidate the most appropriate tool for surveying trypanosomosis in small ruminants under Nigerian field conditions, the sensitivity of four techniques currently in use for the parasitological diagnosis of trypanosomosis was investigated. The concentration methods: haematocrit centrifugation and buffy coat method, were more accurate than the standard trypanosome detection methods: wet film and thin film. Due to the prevalence of the disease, sheep and goats must be treated as well as cattle in the region.
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Treatment methods in the last century involved the use of substances such as sulphur, mercury, hellebore, arsenic, nicotine and others, applied in various ways. The advent of dips in 1843 signalled an advance. However, the biology of the mite, Psoroptes ovis, the epidemiology of sheep scab and the lack of persistence of the acaricides necessitated repeated laborious treatments to ensure success. In 1947 this changed with the use of organo chlorines (OCs) which had up to 3 months residual activity. The use of OCs led to the eradication of psoroptic mange of sheep in USA. Organo phosphates (OPs) were introduced in the late fifties and synthetic pyrethroids (SPs) in the early seventies. In 1985, due to sheep tissue residues, lindane (OC) was withdrawn from the market and this greatly reduced the capacity for effective sheep scab control. Before the arrival of the endectocidal avermectin, ivermectin in 1978 and its successful use as an acaricide in 1992, control of psoroptic mange was limited to plunge dipping. In 1994 moxidectin, a milbemycin, was found to be effective and to have the added benefit of at least 4 weeks persistent activity. Another avermectin doramectin was shown, in 1995, to successfully treat scab and recently an ivermectin bolus has been introduced which has a 100 days' activity and is fully therapeutic and prophylactic. Strict attention to detail in the use of injectable products is essential in order to achieve satisfactory results. Work is progressing on the use insect growth regulators (IGRs) and also on naturally occurring substances such as linalool, neem and lavender oil. At the CVRL Dublin, promising results have been achieved with neem and some IGRs. Other areas of interest are allemones, synergists, microclimate manipulation, sheep breed resistance and vaccines. Successful control depends on epidemiological knowledge, accurate diagnostic techniques, intimate knowledge of the mite's life cycle, its behaviour on and off the host, its macro and molecular biology, the nature of the pathogenesis of the disease, sheep husbandry practices, nutritional and environmental factors; also farmer awareness and attitudes. The variable responses of sheep to the mite, the unpredictable incubation period, course, manifestations and outcome make this an intriguing and perplexing disease. Ways to overcome these problems and to achieve possible eradication are discussed.
Transmissible mink encephalopathy (TME) is probably a form of the sheep disease, scrapie, introduced by accidentally feeding mink with scrapie-infected sheep tissues. Although no successful transmissions of TME to mice have been achieved previous work has involved various limitations. To maximize the possibility of transmission, 176 mice, representing 14 different genotypes mostly not previously tested with TME, were injected with TME-infected mink brain from three sources with different histories. No scrapie-like disease was detected clinically or histologically in these mice or in a further 111 which were subsequently injected with brain or spleen material from 10 of the TME-injected mice killed when senile. Furthermore, a series of experiments involving seven strains of scrapie, demonstrated that prior injection of mice with TME failed to affect the normal progress of scrapie infection indicating that TME agent had not occupied scrapie replication sites or otherwise influenced the pathogenesis of scrapie. The overall conclusion from these experiments is that TME is biologically inactive in mice. Although many strains of natural scrapie can be transmitted to laboratory mice, this has not been possible with all strains and it is concluded that one or more of such strains is likely to be the cause of TME in mink.
Sheep taken individually and allowed to inhale air being drawn along a duct from a cabinet containing pigs acutely infected with foot-and-mouth disease virus for 10 or 15 minute periods were infected by doses as low as 10 TCID50 of virus. The most consistent and reliable indicators of infection were viraemia and seroconversion. The mean times from exposure to onset of viraemia, pyrexia and the appearance of vesicular lesions were 2.5, 3.8 and 4.7 days, respectively. Neither the time from exposure to first detectable viraemia nor vesication correlated with dose. Around 27 per cent of sheep which were known to have been infected did not develop vesicles.
Scrapie and other transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) are characterized by similar pathology, biochemistry and genetics. The PrP protein and its conversion to the disease-related isoform, PrPSC, are crucial for the development of all TSEs. Although scrapie is more often studied in laboratory rodents, it is not a natural disease of these animals, and much can be learned from the normal hosts, sheep. Disease incidence is linked to polymorphisms and mutations of the PrP gene. The complex relationships between PrP genotype and the survival of sheep subjected to scrapie infection are now being investigated in terms of the different structure of the PrP protein molecules produced by each allele. It is these structures and their differing abilities to convert to PrPSC that hold the key to understanding why TSEs occur.
Bighorn sheep populations have greatly declined in numbers and distribution since European settlement, primarily because of high susceptibility to infectious diseases transmitted to them from domestic livestock. It has been suggested that low variation at major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes, the most important genetic aspect of the vertebrate immune system, may result in high susceptibility to infectious disease. Therefore, we examined genetic polymorphism at a MHC gene (Ovca-DRB) in a large sample, both numerically and geographically, of bighorn sheep. Strikingly, there were 21 different alleles that showed extensive nucleotide and amino acid sequence divergence. In other words, low MHC variation does not appear to be the basis of the high disease susceptibility and decline in bighorn sheep. On the other hand, analysis of the pattern of the MHC polymorphism suggested that nonsynonymous substitutions predominated, especially at amino acids in the antigen-binding site. The average overall heterozygosity for the 16 amino acid positions that are part of the antigen binding site is 0.389 whereas that for the 67 amino acid positions not involved with antigen binding is 0.076. These findings imply that the diversity present in this gene is functionally significant and is, or has been, maintained by balancing selection. To examine the evolution of DRB alleles in related species, a phylogenetic analysis including other published ruminant (Bovidae and Cervidae) species, was carried out. An intermixture of sequences from bighorn sheep, domestic sheep, goats, cattle, bison, and musk ox was observed supporting trans-species polymorphism for these species. To reconcile the species and gene trees for the 104 sequences examined, 95 'deep coalescent' events were necessary, illustrating the importance of balancing selection maintaining variation over speciation events.
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Heads from 478 aged sheep of a predominantly hill breed population were examined in detail for evidence of dental disease, using both soft and hard tissue measurements around incisor and cheek teeth. Almost 60 per cent of this population (all over 2 1/2 years of age and with a mean age between 7 and 8 years) had either loose or missing teeth. Malalignment of cheek teeth and/or incisors was also common. Pocketing was seen in 87 per cent of the population, and was significantly correlated with tooth looseness. There was also a significant relationship between incisor and specific cheek tooth pocket depths. Whilst local alveolar bone loss was found, it was not a reflection of more general skeletal deterioration. The survey confirms the high incidence of broken mouth in the national flock and shows that wherever incisor problems occur there is a likelihood that cheek tooth disease is also present, a relationship not readily appreciated clinically.
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The significance of tick-borne fever (TBF) and other tick-borne diseases of British sheep are reviewed. Experimental and field studies were carried out to clarify the role of TBF as a pathogen per se and as a predisposing factor in other diseases. Experimental TBF infection caused anorexia and depression in two- to three-week-old lambs, which under the stress of a hill environment could alone be a cause of mortality. Nine out of 10 lambs experimentally inoculated with Staphylococcus aureus during the febrile phase of a TBF reaction developed pyaemic lesions compared with four out of 20 lambs inoculated with S aureus alone. Specific pathogen-free lambs inoculated with an aerosol of Pasteurella haemolytica serotype A1 during a TBF reaction showed more severe clinical signs and had more extensive pathological changes at necropsy than control lambs given P haemolytica alone. Dual infection with TBF and louping-ill virus showed that not only were dually infected sheep more susceptible to louping-ill but almost all of them succumbed to a haemorrhagic syndrome involving a systemic mycotic infection with Rhizomucor pucillus. None of eight sheep given louping-ill virus alone developed this syndrome. Field studies indicated that morbidity and mortality in lambs in south-west Scotland could be markedly reduced by dipping and long acting antibiotic prophylaxis. Lamb groups in which both of these were carried out incurred losses of only 0.6 per cent compared with 10.3 per cent in control groups. In addition antibiotic-treated lamb groups demonstrated significantly better weight gains than untreated groups.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Fourteen sheep persistently infected with border disease virus were investigated to examine the effects of persistent viraemia on lymphocyte subpopulations in peripheral blood and their responses to the mitogen phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) in vitro. Persistently infected sheep had significantly more CD8+ (cytotoxic-suppressor) T-lymphocytes than uninfected sheep of the same age (P less than 0.001). The total number of CD4+ (helper) T-lymphocytes were not significantly different but there were more T-lymphocytes (CD5+) which were CD4- and CD8- in normal sheep than persistently infected sheep (P less than 0.001). Peripheral lymphocytes obtained from persistently infected sheep showed significantly reduced blastogenesis induced by PHA than those obtained from normal sheep (P less than 0.001).