Atypical outbreak of foot and mouth disease in a dairy farm
Author(s): C Theophilus Anand Kumar, K Vijay, C Inbaraj, S Shiyamala and P Kumaravel
Abstract: An atypical outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) with absence of fever and foot lesions and mortality of 6 adult cows was encountered in a dairy farm. Besides the oral lesions, the clinical signs namely anorexia, multifocal bilateral dermatitis of neck region, ropy salivation with smacking noise and erosions around the vulval lips of the cows were observed in ten milch animals, of the farm. The Post-mortem findings were pneumonia, hepatic necrosis, enteritis and interstitial nephritis. The screened virology samples were positive for “serotype ‘O’ of FMD virus in the test carried out by Reverse Transcription-multiplex Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-mPCR) and Enzyme-linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) but were found to be negative for the viral genomes of Malignant Catarrhal Fever (MCF), Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis (IBR) and Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD) by PCR. The histopathological findings were pneumonia, hepatic necrosis, cholangitis, enteritis, lymphocytic depletion of spleen, interstitial nephritis, myocardial hemorrhages, necrotic tracheitis, acute necrotic suppurative glossitis, necrotic suppurative dermatitis and vulvitis. In the bacteriological samples no pathogenic organisms could be detected. The toxicological samples were negative for pesticides like Organochlorine, Organophosphorus, Organocarbamates, Pyrethroids compounds and Nitrite poisoning and no significant level of mycotoxins could be detected. The outbreak was contained by carrying out ring vaccination for FMD.
