Contagious bovine pleuropneumonia

It is a disease of bovines characterized by high rise of body temperature and difficulty in respiration.

Etiology: Mycoplasma mycoides var mycoides are gram negative, highly fragile organisms and cannot survive for more than 34 h outside the body of host. The morbidity rates are very high but mortality is comparatively low.

Clinical signs: The infected animals reveal high rise of body temperature, reduction in milk yield, anorexia, and complete absence of ruminal movements, dullness, depression and coughing. The coughing is pronounced even on light exercise. There is pain in the chest resulting in shallow and rapid respiration and grunting during respiration which is pronounced during expiration. Auscultation of chest area reveals pleuritic friction sounds and moist rales. Death occurs in few days due to anoxia. On postmortem examination of dead animals, lesions are primarily present in thoracic cavity. The pleura are thickened and inflamed and cavity is full of serous clear fluid with fibrin deposits. There is marked consolidation of lungs.

Diagnosis: It is diagnosed by clinical symptoms and can be confirmed by postmortem and histopathological lesions in dead animals. The isolation of organisms from serous fluid in thoracic cavity also helps in its confirmation. Serological tests like complement fixation and serum agglutination are very useful. Commercially coloured antigens are available which can be used for agglutination test. Intradermal allergic test also confirms the disease.

Treatment: These organisms are not affected by penicillin, streptomycin or tetracyclines. However, it can easily be treated with tylosin when given @ 10mg/ kg body weight intramuscularly twice daily for 4 days. Erythromycin given @ 20 mg/kg body weight twice daily for 4 days is also effective. The treatment with tiamulin @ 10 mg/kg for 4 days got maximum response. The application of turpentine ointment over chest area helps in relieving chest pain.

Control: The disease is controlled by taking strict hygienic measures, removing source of infection and avoiding stress. Thus occurrence of infection can be minimized.