engleski

Prevalence of C. psittaci in turkey parent flocks in Croatia: Detection of antigen and antibodies

Respiratory diseases have major economic impact on industrial turkey production worldwide, and are also common in Croatian flocks, both in parent and in fattening ones. Chlamydophila psittaci (C. psittaci) is one of the most important etiological agents in turkey multicausal respiratory syndrome. Moreover, it is also known to be transmissible to humans causing significant infection in workers or veterinarians. Outbreaks of respiratory diseases of unknown etiology in turkeys have been recorded in Croatia, but the role of C. psittaci in it was not investigated, what was the main reason to perform the preliminary investigation to detect specific antigen and antibodies in clinically healthy parent flocks. For both, detection of specific antigen, and antibodies against C. psittaci commercial ELISA kits were used, according to manufacturer’ s recommendation (IDEIATM PCE Chlamydia Test, DAKO, Hamburg, Germany and RIDASCREEN&reg ; ; ; Chlamydia psittaci, R-Biopharm AG, Darmstadt, Germany). Altogether 36 conjunctival, pharyngeal and cloacal swabs and 30 blood sera were taken from parent female turkeys of different ages (between 18 and 50 weeks of age) on three different farms and tested for the presence of specific antigen and antibodies against C. psittaci. From the farm A, with females in age of 18 weeks, out of 12 swabs 4 of them were positive for the specific antigen, and all out of 10 blood sera were positive for the antibodies against C. psittaci. From the farm B, with females in age of 33 weeks, all out of 12 swabs were negative for the specific antigen, and 5 out of 10 blood sera were positive for the antibodies against C. psittaci. From the farm C, with females in age of 50 weeks, 4 out of 12 swabs were find positive for the specific antigen, and 3 out of 10 blood sera were positive for the antibodies against C. psittaci (Table 1). Because of positive findings of specific antigen (22.2 %) and antibodies (60.0 %) against C. psittaci in all examined flocks and small number of examined samples further investigations are needed in attempt to detect the real role of C. psittaci in clinical respiratory syndrome in Croatian turkey production.

C. psittaci; turkey; antigen; antibodies; Croatia

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