Reproductive and production performance of Friesian dairy cattle in Jordan

Vaccination control programs for multiple livestock host species: an age-stratified, seasonal transmission model for brucellosis control in endemic settings

BACKGROUND

Brucella melitensis causes production losses in ruminants and febrile disease in humans in Africa, Central Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere. Although traditionally understood to affect primarily sheep and goats, it is also the predominant Brucella species that affects cows in some endemic areas. Despite this, no licensed vaccine is available specifically for use against B. melitensis in cows. The mainstay of most control programs is vaccination of sheep and goats with a live vaccine, Rev-1. The aim of this study was to investigate how critical vaccination of cows might be, in order to control B. melitensis on a mixed sheep-and-cattle farm.

METHODS

A dynamic, differential-equation, age-structured, seasonal model with births and deaths, was used to investigate whether vaccination of both sheep and cattle had an impact on time to elimination of brucellosis on an individual mixed species farm, when compared to vaccination of sheep only. The model was a Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered-Susceptible (SEIRS) model with an additional compartment for Persistently Infected (PI) individuals. Transmission parameters were fit based on a nation-wide probabilistic seroprevalence survey in Jordan.

RESULTS

The model predicted that it would take 3.5 years to eliminate brucellosis (to less than 0.5% of adult sheep seropositive as a result of infection) on a mixed-species B. melitensis-endemic farm with the median field-study seroprevalence, following vaccination of both sheep and cattle, assuming a vaccine effectiveness of 80%. Limiting the vaccination to sheep only, increased the time to 16.8 years. Sensitivity analysis showed that the finding that vaccination of cattle was of significant importance, was robust. Vaccine effectiveness had a strong influence on time to elimination.

CONCLUSIONS

In the absence of further data, vaccination of cattle should be considered essential in Brucella-endemic settings where mixed small ruminant and cattle flocks predominate. Further evidence that Brucella melitensis predominates in cattle in Jordan, as opposed to Brucella abortus, is needed in order to validate this model. The results may be applicable to other mixed-species settings with similar livestock management practices. These methods may be applied to other pathogens affecting multiple livestock species or with seasonal transmission.

Prevalence of ketonemia and associations with herd size, lactation stage, parity, and postparturient diseases in Jordanian dairy cattle

The prevalence of bovine ketonemia among 1155 dairy cows in various stages of lactation and parity on 25 Jordanian dairy herds was studied. The cross-sectional study was conducted during the spring of 1992. Serum concentration of beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) <0.9 mmol/l, between 0.9 and 1.7 mmol/l, and >1.7 mmol/l were considered to indicate normal, mild and severe ketonemia, respectively. The point prevalences of mild and severe ketonemia were 22% and 3.8%, respectively. The prevalence of ketonemia decreased with increasing herd size. Associations between the prevalence of ketonemia and parity, stage of lactation, metritis, somatic-cell count (SCC) and serum cholesterol levels were not significant (p > 0.05).