The effectiveness of chemotherapy as an aid to the control of contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (CBPP) in Tanzania

Abstract

An observational study to assess the effectiveness of chemotherapy as an aid to the control of contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (CBPP) was carried out in Dodoma district. A total of 24 animals showing typical signs of CBPP were purchased and grazed together with 24 healthy animals period of 4 weeks after which the latter group of animals was assumed to have acquired infection served as in-contact animals. The sick and in-contact animals were assigned to different groups and treated with oxytetracycline, tylosin and tilmicosin and then monitored for their clinical status for four months. Of the six untreated sick animals, four of them died during the course of the experiment and had CBPP lesions and the remaining two were sacrificed at the end of the experiment and also had gross lesions. Mycoplasma mycoides subsp. mycoides, small colony type (M. mycoides SC) was isolated from three of the animals. Two of the oxytetracycline treated animals died during the course of the experiments and both had CBPP lesions and M. mycoides SC was isolated from one of them. None of the tylosin- and tilmicosin-treated sick animals died during the experiment but on sacrifice four and three animals in the tylosin and tilmicosin groups respectively had CBPP lesions and M. mycoides SC was isolated from one animal in each group. Of the treated in-contact animals, one animal in each group had CBPP lesions when sacrificed and none of them yielded M. mycoides SC on culture. Of the untreated in contact animals, three had CBPP lesions while the other three ddid not shown such lesion. M. mycoides SC was isolated from two animals with CBPP lesions, and which exhibited typical CBPP clinical features the end of the experiment.