Short Communication

Enterotoxemia is characterized by a highly fatal hemorrhagic enteritis in cattle, caused byClostridium perfringens. Production systems with intensive feeding, such as the veal industry,are predisposed. The primary objective of this study was to determine the effect of solid feedprovision on fecal C. perfringens excretion in veal calves. Ten Holstein Friesian bull veal calveswere randomly assigned to one of two test diets. Group 1 received solemnly milk replacer twicedaily, while group 2 received milk replacer and a maximum of 300g solid feed/day, consisting ofa mixture of 30% barley, 30% corn, 30% hulled wheat and 10% chopped straw. The number ofC. perfringens per g feces or fecal clostridial counts (FCC) were determined for all calves. MeanFCC were significantly lower in the calves fed milk replacer and solid feed, than in the calves fedsolemnly milk replacer. Although the correlation between FCC and enterotoxemia risk remainsto be determined, the provision of solid feed to veal calves reduced clostridial excretion, whichmight contribute to the prevention of this disease.

Contagious respiratory infections are an important cause of respiratory disease in horses,resulting in impaired pulmonary function, poor performance and sometimes severe illness. Althoughbacterial infections are often suspected to be involved, viruses are frequently overlookedand are an underestimated cause of respiratory disease outbreaks in horses. In this study, nasalswabs of 103 horses with acute symptoms of respiratory disease were analyzed for the presenceof 13 different respiratory pathogens. Gamma herpesviruses were the most commonly detected,with 60% of the samples being positive, followed by streptococcus equi subsp. zooepidemicus infection(30%). Rhinovirus B, streptococcus equi subsp. equi, adenovirus 1 and EHV-4 were morerarely detected. Further research is necessary to correctly interpret the importance of gammaherpesviruses in horses, for example by screening a healthy control population. National surveillanceof respiratory viruses in horses by PCR analysis on nasal swabs might be a useful, earlywarningsystem for viral epidemics.

The number of cases of Lyme disease in humans in Belgium has been steadily increasing. Rabbits might represent a source of human borreliosis due to the fact that they are often infested with ticks. It was therefore the aim of the present study to estimate the seroprevalence of Borrelia infections in rabbits in Belgium. For this purpose blood samples from 103 wild rabbits were examined for the presence of antibodies using ELISA. Antibodies against Borrelia were detected in 8.7% of the samples, yielding an estimated prevalence of 2.3%. The low prevalence suggests that rabbits play a minor role in the epidemiology and transmission of Lyme disease from animals to man in Flanders.

Mycotic disease, other than skin lesions, is only rarely reported in lizards (Schumacher, 2003). In this case report, we describe the isolation of Nannizziopsis vriesii from a nasal granuloma in an ameiva lizard (Ameiva chaitzami) imported from Central America.

Thirteen multidrug-resistant MRSA strains from infections of hospitalized horses in an equine clinic wereanalyzed. They all were indigestible by SmaI restriction, possessed SCCmec type IV and belonged to spa typet011. One isolate was analyzed by MLST and allotted to ST398. The MRSA clonal lineage ST398-SCCmec IVappears to have a high capability of causing clinical infections in an equine hospital environment.

Pimobendan, an inodilator, is often recommended for the treatment of dilated cardiomyopathy(DCM) in dogs. DCM is also quite often seen with ferrets, but little is known about the effects of pimobendanon this animal. In the present tolerability study, three groups of five ferrets were used.Over a period of eight weeks, the first test group received a placebo twice daily, the second groupreceived a dosage of 0.5 mg/kg pimobendan (Vetmedin®, Boehringer Ingelheim, Brussels, Belgium)twice daily, and the third group received a dosage of 1.5 mg/kg twice daily. All the ferrets remainedclinically healthy throughout the experiment. Monitoring of the blood values showed a tendency towardsincreasing gamma glutamyltranspeptidase values. Except for some practical problems due tothe taste of the product, no major objections were seen in this study for the use of pimobendan inferrets. Further research is required to confirm this conclusion.