Bovine Dermatophilosis in an Apulian dairy cattle

Dermatophilosis is a chronic and contagious exudative-proliferative dermatitis that mainly affects wild and domestic ruminants. It is caused by Dermatophilus congolensis, a Gram positive bacterium. The disease is currently considered endemic in Africa, North America, Australia and New Zealand. The few Italian reports are not related to domestic cattle in which the infection is characterized by high morbidity and low mortality with distinctive epidermal lesion like “paintbrush”. In domestic and wild ruminants, it’s a multifocal inflammatory disease of superficial layers of the skin of the back, carpus and hock. The aggravated forms can result in high fever and in a significative reduction in dairy production. The diagnosis is usually made by culture isolation of the crusts on Columbia Blood Agar (CBA) incubated in microaerophilic condition at 37°C for 5 days. Aim of this work is to describe a case of dermatophilosis occurred in an Apulian dairy cattle in the August of 2016. The characteristic skin lesion involved 30% of the animals and some animals showed anorexia and high fever accompanied by drastic reduction of dairy production. Two samples (recent crusts from two different animals) were subjected to culture isolation for bacteriological and mycological tests, as well as molecular identification by PCR with specific primers for D. congolensis. The amplicons were sequenced by MiSeq NGS technology and the sequence, aligned with the reference sequences present in the BLAST database. The two sequences perfectly matched with reference sequences of D. congolensis. Diagnosis based on culture isolation often reveals skin bacteria and fungi contaminants, as occurred in this case, that can interfere with D. congolensis growth. For this reason this method is often not usefull as diagnostic test and it’s necessary to use reliable diagnostic tests such as PCR in order to obtain more precise information on the real diffusion of this pathogen.La dermatofilosi è una dermatite cronica contagiosa a carattere essudativo-proliferativo che colpisce principalmente i ruminanti. E’ causata da Dermatophilus congolensis, un batterio Gram positivo. E’ considerata endemica in Africa, Nord America, Australia e Nuova Zelanda. In Italia le poche segnalazioni che ci sono non riguardano i bovini domestici nei quali l’infezione è caratterizzata da un’alta morbilità e bassa mortalità, con lesioni epidermiche a “paintbrush” distintive. Nei ruminanti la patologia coinvolge gli strati superficiali della cute del dorso, carpo e garretto. Le forme aggravate comportano febbre elevata e notevole riduzione della produzione lattea. La diagnosi si effettua mediante isolamento colturale su Columbia Blood Agar (CBA) incubato in micoraerofilia a 37°C per 5 giorni. Nella presente nota descriviamo un focolaio di dermatofilosi avvenuto nell’agosto 2016 in un allevamento di bovine da latte sito in Puglia. Le lesioni coinvolgevano il 30 % dell’effettivo e alcuni animali presentavano anoressia e febbre con riduzione della produzione lattea. Due croste provenienti da soggetti diversi sono state sottoposte ad esami batteriologici e micologici, e ad identificazione molecolare mediante PCR con primers specifici per D. congolensis. Gli amplificati sono stati sequenziati mediante tecnologia MiSeq NGS e la sequenza, allineata con le sequenze di referenza del database BLAST, ha dato esito positivo per D. congolensis. La diagnosi basata sull’isolamento colturale risulta spesso non idonea a causa della contemporanea presenza di contaminanti cutanei, come è avvenuto in questo caso, si rende perciò necessario l’ impiego di test diagnostici affidabili come la PCR al fine di ottenere informazioni più precise sulla reale diffusione di questo patogeno

Basic knowledge and misconceptions on antibiotic use: a comparative survey between Veterinary College and High School students in Bari (Italy)

Misconceptions about the use and effectiveness of antibiotics contribute to the persistence of antimicrobial resistance. The aim of this study was to gather information on appropriate use of antibiotics in students from the Veterinary Medicine College (G1, n = 119) and from High School (G2, n = 220), from Bari (Italy) through a questionnaire. The response rate was 89% in G1 and 89.5% in G2. Fifty-five % of college students and 79% of high-school students had taken antibiotics in the last 12 months. Unsurprisingly, high-school students had more misconceptions about antibiotics than G1. The majority of misconceptions stated that i) antibiotics kill viruses (OR 8.4, CI 4.8-14.7, p < 0.001); ii) they are active against cold and flu (OR 4.6, CI 2.6-8.1, p < 0.001); iii) it is possible to purchase antibiotics without a medical prescription (OR 7.3, CI 4.3-12.5, p < 0.001). Information campaigns among young people are urgently needed to reduce misuse and to improve knowledge on antibiotics

Small ruminant lentiviruses in goats in southern Italy: Serological evidence, risk factors and implementation of control programs

Small ruminant lentiviruses (SRLVs) can drastically affect milk production in goat flocks and only an early detection can control and prevent their spread. Since SRLVs are responsible for persistent infections, antibody screening is the most valuable tool to identify infected animals. ELISA is recommended as the election test both for its sensitivity and for its ability to detect low antibody titers, thus identifying infected animals earlier than agar gel immunodiffusion (AGID). In the present study, an investigation was conducted to assess the SRLV seroprevalence in goat flocks in southern Italy and a transversal comparative study was carried out through the analysis of the possible risk factors influencing SRLV spread. A total of 4800 sera from 1060 flocks were analyzed and overall seroprevalences of 18,64% and 51,69% at animal and herd levels, respectively, were observed. Both the region and the herd production systems were able to affect seroprevalence, differently from the herd size, probably because the mean number of goats per herd is low and the semi-intensive management is similar regardless of the dimensional class of each herd. In particular, meat producing herds showed the higher seroprevalence, as a result of the poor sanitation and low animal monitoring in comparison to milk producing herds, where animals are managed twice daily and the relationship between dams and kids is checked to guarantee an adequate quantitative/qualitative milk yield. In the absence of vaccines or effective treatments, health preventive management and seroepidemiological investigations are the only successful approach to restrict SRLV spread as observed in countries were official/voluntary control programs are carried out

Fatal Calf Pneumonia Outbreaks in Italian Dairy Herds Involving Mycoplasma bovis and Other Agents of BRD Complex

Mycoplasma bovis is increasingly recognized worldwide as an important cause of disease with major welfare and production impairments on cattle rearing. Although it was detected in veal calves and beef cattle, little is known on the infection impact and on its temporal morbidity pattern in Italian dairy herds. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the involvement of M. bovis on fatal calf pneumonia outbreaks that occurred during 2009–2019 in 64 Italian dairy farms. Furthermore, a deeper diagnostic workup of concurrent infection with other viral and bacterial respiratory pathogens was assessed. Out of the investigated fatal pneumonia cases, M. bovis was frequently detected (animal prevalence, 16.16%; 95%CI, 11.82–21.33; herd prevalence, 26.56; 95%CI, 16.29–39.08) either as the single agent of the disease in more than half of the positive samples (20/37) or in concurrent infections with Histophilus somni (9/37, 24.3%), Mannheimia haemolytica (6/37, 16.621%), Trueperella pyogenes (1/37, 2.70%), Pasteurella multocida (1/37, 2.70%), bovine respiratory syncytial virus (5/37, 13.51%), and bovine viral diarrhea virus (2/37, 5.55%). Based on time-series analysis, M. bovis was recorded in the area since 2009 with outbreaks displaying a clear morbidity seasonal pattern with peaks in April (43.21%) and in September (13.51%). This might be due to the stressing conditions during spring and late summer periods. Results of this study highlight that M. bovis infection warrants consideration, and control measures are needed given its involvement in lethal pneumonia outbreaks in dairy herds from an extended area

Detection of multi-drug resistance and AmpC β-lactamase/extended-spectrum β-lactamase genes in bacterial isolates of loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) from the Mediterranean Sea

Sea turtles are useful sentinels to monitor the dissemination of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the marine coastal ecosystems. Forty Gram negative bacteria were isolated from wounds of 52 injured Caretta caretta, living in the Mediterranean Sea. Bacteria were identified using 16S rRNA gene sequencing and tested for susceptibility to 15 antibiotics. In addition, NGS amplicon sequencing was performed to detect the presence of AmpC β-lactamase genes (blaAmpC) and extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) genes (blaCTX-M,blaSHV,blaTEM). Seventy-five percent of the isolates (30/40 isolates) exhibited multidrug resistance (MDR) phenotypes and 32.5% (13/40 isolates) were confirmed to be positive for at least one gene. The variants of ESBLs genes were blaCTX-M-3,blaTEM-236 and blaSHV-12. Variants of the blaAmpCβ-lactamase gene i.e., blaACT-24, blaACT-2, blaACT-17, blaDHA-4 and blaCMY-37, were also detected. In addition, 4 isolates were found simultaneously harboring CTX and AmpC genes while 2 strains harbored 3 genes (blaACT-2+TEM-236+SHV-12, and blaCTX-M-3+ACT-24+TEM-236)