Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Jun 11;15(1):194.
doi: 10.1186/s12917-019-1924-7.

Serology for Neosporosis, Q fever and Brucellosis to assess the cause of abortion in two dairy cattle herds in Ecuador

Darwin Changoluisa  1 , Ismar A Rivera-Olivero  2 , Gustavo Echeverria  3 , Miguel Angel Garcia-Bereguiain  4   5 , Jacobus H de Waard  6   7 ; working group “Applied Microbiology” of the School of Biological Sciences and Engineering at Yachay Tech University
Collaborators, Affiliations

Serology for Neosporosis, Q fever and Brucellosis to assess the cause of abortion in two dairy cattle herds in Ecuador

Darwin Changoluisa et al. BMC Vet Res. .

Abstract

Background: Determining the infectious cause of abortion in cattle is difficult. This case-control study was set up to investigate the infectious causes of abortion by determining the seroprevalence of three reproductive pathogens in dairy cattle in Ecuador and their association with abortion: Brucella abortus, Neospora caninum and Coxiella burnetii.

Results: Ninety-five blood samples were obtained from cows that had experienced a mid- or late gestation abortion of their first calf and seventy-seven samples from a control group of cows with the same age that did not experience abortion problems. No antibodies were detected for B. abortus in any of the serum samples, but a high seroprevalence for both C. burnetii (52.9%) and N. caninum infection (21.5%) was found in group of cows. The seroprevalence of N. caninum infection in cattle that had experienced abortions was significantly higher (p < 0.05) than the seroprevalence in the control cows on one of the cattle farms, but no association between abortion and seropositivity for C. burnetii was found.

Conclusion: We conclude that Neosporosis plays an important role in the epidemiology of abortion on one cattle farm, but that Q fever is apparently not an important cause for abortion in this setting.

Keywords: Brucella; Brucellosis; Cattle; Coxiella; Ecuador; Neospora; Neosporosis; Q fever.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

References

    1. Laven, R. Dealing with abortion. NADIS. National Animal Disease Information Service Available at http://www.nadis.org.uk/disease-a-z/cattle/fertility-in-dairy-herds/part.... Accessed 28 Nov 2018.
    1. Peter AT. Abortions in dairy cows: new insights and economic impact. Adv Dairy Technol. 2000;12:233.
    1. Hovingh E. Virginia Coop. Ext. Publ. Blacksburg: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; 2009. Abortions in dairy cattle: I. Common causes of abortions; pp. 404–288.
    1. Garcia-Ispierto I, Tutusaus J, López-Gatius F. Does Coxiella burnetii affect reproduction in cattle? A clinical update. Reprod Domest Anim. 2014;49(4):529–535. doi: 10.1111/rda.12333. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Angelakis E, Raoult D. Q fever. Vet Microbiol. 2010;140(4):297–309. doi: 10.1016/j.vetmic.2009.07.016. - DOI - PubMed

MeSH terms

Substances