An outbreak of winter dysentery caused by bovine coronavirus in a high-production dairy cattle herd from a tropical country

Detalhes bibliográficos
Autor(a) principal: Takiuchi,Elisabete
Data de Publicação: 2009
Outros Autores: Barry,Aline Fernandes, Alfieri,Alice Fernandes, Filippsen,Patrícia, Alfieri,Amauri Alcindo
Tipo de documento: Artigo
Idioma: eng
Título da fonte: Brazilian Archives of Biology and Technology
Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1516-89132009000700008
Resumo: Bovine coronavirus (BCoV) is a known cause of winter dysentery (WD) in adult cattle. The morbidity of the disease is high, that results in a significant decrease in milk production and consequently, economic losses. In the present study, we report on a classical outbreak of WD that affected a high-production Holstein dairy herd raised in a tropical country. The lactating batch included 154 cows, and 138 (90%) presented diarrhea in a short (nine days) period of time. Three (2%) cows died. The other batches of animals did not become ill. The evolution of the disease in the herd, including the clinical signs and epidemiological features, strongly suggested a WD case. Semi-nested PCR and RFLP confirmed that BCoV was the cause of the infection. Samples tested negative for all other enteric pathogens. This case report highlights the importance of BCoV in WD even in tropical countries such as Brazil.