Serological Evidence of
Selected Abortifacients in a Dairy Herd with History of Abortion
Muhammad Zubair Shabbir*,
Rana Khurram Khalid,Derek Matthew Freitas1,
Muhammad Tariq Javed2, Masood Rabbani, Tahir Yaqub, Arfan
Ahmad,Muhammad Abu Bakr
Shabbir1 and Muhammad Abbas3
aUniversity Diagnostic Laboratory, University of
Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore 54000, Pakistan; 1Department
of Epidemiology & Public Health, Leonard M. Miller School of
Medicine, University of Miami, USA; 2University of
Agriculture, Faisalabad 38040, Pakistan; 3Veterinary
Research Institute, Lahore 54000, Pakistan
*corresponding author:
vetvains@uvas.edu.pk
Abstract
Abortion is common among
dairy herds in Pakistan.
However, except for Brucella abortus,
little is known about other prevalent abortifacients. Therefore, a sero-epidemiological
study was conducted in a dairy herd with a history of abortion located in
Lahore,
Pakistan.Blood samples (3–5 mL) were taken from each animal (cows, n = 43;
buffaloes, n = 47) in the herd. Seropositivity to infectious bovine
rhinotracheitis (IBR), B. abortus,
blue tongue virus (BTV), bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) and
Toxoplasma gondii was determined using
commercially available kits. Among cows and buffaloes, seropositivity was most
frequent for IBR (69.8 and
70.3%, P>0.05) followed by
B. abortus (32.6 and 42.6%, P>0.05), BVDV (9.3 and 6.4%, P>0.05) and BTV (4.7
and 6.4%, P>0.05), whereas, all the animals were seronegative to
T. gondii. With respect to age, there
was a significant difference (P<0.05) in seropositivity to
B. abortus, BTV, and to multiple
infectious agents in buffaloes. Additionally, a history of prior abortion was
found to be significantly associated with current abortion in buffaloes and cows
(P<0.001). While several significant associations between seropositivity to
various agents and abortion were initially found, further analyses showed no
significant associations in cows or buffaloes. The study concludes that
seropositivity to the studied infectious agents was not significantly associated
with abortion when accounting for other covariates, while prior abortion was
found to be significantly associated with current abortion in both cows and
buffaloes. However, owing to the small preliminary nature of the study, small
sample size, and small number of abortion events, further studies are needed to
ascertain the validity of these results.