Fuentes ambientales de la infección por Cryptosporidium parvum en terneros lecheros neonatales

Maria Leonor Rodrigues¹, Mariana Louro², Jacinto Gomes³, Isabel Pereira da Fonseca⁴, Ricardo Bexiga⁵

1-CIISA ? Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Animal Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Lisbon; Associate Laboratory for Animal and Veterinary Sciences (AL4AnimalS) 2-CIISA Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Animal Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Lisbon; Associate Laboratory for Animal and Veterinary Sciences (AL4AnimalS)
3-CIISA Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Animal Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Lisbon; Associate Laboratory for Animal and Veterinary Sciences (AL4AnimalS); Escola Superior Agrária de Elvas, Instituto Politécnico de Portalegre 4-CIISA Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Animal Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Lisbon; Associate Laboratory for Animal and Veterinary Sciences (AL4AnimalS)
5-CIISA Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Animal Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Lisbon; Associate Laboratory for Animal and Veterinary Sciences (AL4AnimalS)

Environmental sources of Cryptosporidium parvum infection
in neonatal dairy calves

Fuentes ambientales de la infección por Cryptosporidium
parvum en terneros lecheros neonatales

Maria
Leonor Rodrigues^1,2, Mariana Louro^1,2, Jacinto Gomes^1,2,3,
Isabel Pereira da Fonseca^1,2, Ricardo Bexiga^1,2

¹CIISA
– Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Animal Health, Faculty of Veterinary
Medicine, University of Lisbon, Portugal;

²Associate
Laboratory for Animal and Veterinary Sciences (AL4AnimalS);

³Escola
Superior Agrária de Elvas, Instituto Politécnico de Portalegre;

marialeonorrodrigues@edu.ulisboa.pt

Introduction and objectives

Materials, methods and results

Fecal
samples from 6 adult cows were collected in pre and postpartum periods, as well
as at birth from the respective offspring in a commercial dairy farm. Fecal samples
from the 7 calves were collected daily from birth until day 21. Environmental
samples such as swabs from boots, gloves, housing, buckets, esophageal tube,
and petri dish collecting aerosols from high pressure water cleaning were
collected.

Diagnosis
methodology was based on the identification of oocysts using a filtration
technique to remove the debris from the feces, followed by Ziehl-Neelsen stain
and a direct immunofluorescence assay to detect the presence of Cryptosporidium
oocyst. All cows’ samples were negative. On the 6^th day, 4/7
calves tested positive, and by day 7, 7/7 were positive. From the 146 samples
of calves tested, 104 were positive when using immunofluorescence assay but
only 70 were positive when Ziehl-Neelsen stain was used.

Conclusions