engleski

Spatial distribution of bluetongue in cattle in southern Croatia in the last quarter of 2002

After thr first outbreak of the bluetongue disease in domestic ruminants in southern Croatia, in the late 2001, there was an interest to learn more about the spread as well as the distribution of the disease among domestic cattle population in the district Dubrovnik-Neretva (DN) and Split-Dalmatia (SD). A sentinel pilot scheme was employed from September to December 2002. The use of sentinel cattle in a protection zone (which was defined as a part of country having a radius of at least 100 km arond the infected holding and consisted of district DN and southern part of district SD) was aimed to detect a seroconversion in cattle at the prevalence of 5%. For that purpose 60 cattle in 10 villages (6 cattle per village) were sampled approximately every 15 days. Sentinel cattle in the surveillance zone (which was defined as a radius of about 100 km from the protection zone and consisted of northern part of SD district) was aimed for an early detection of seroconversion in cattle at the prevalence of 2%. For this purpose 150 cattle in 15 villages (10 cattle per village) participated in the sentinel scheme. In this zone cattle were tested approxymately every 30 days. The criteria for selection of a place to post a sentinels were: a density of ruminant population, vicinity of places for which the local veterinary service knows or suspects that are suitable for development of a vectors as well as readiness of the owner to parcitipate in a sentinel scheme. The criteria for inclusion of cattle into a sentinel pilot study were: cattle older than 6 months that are serologically negative. Serum samples were screened with Commpetitive Enzime Linked Immunosorbent Assay (C-ELISA, VMRD Inc, USA). The risk factors associated with BT occurreces were collected through the questionnaire. The map indicating the spatial distribution of sentinel herds in protection and surveillance zones will be produced. The results of 2002 sentinel cattle scheme in Croatia as well as spatial distribution of cattle found BTV serocoverted during the 2002 sentinel program, will be presented on the poster.

Bluetongue virus, cattle, Croatia ; sentinel herd, spatial data

nije evidentirano