Prevalence and serological testing of diseases in Lithuanian goat population

Introduction: Pathogens such as Toxoplasma gondii, lentiviruses (e.g., caprine arthritis- encephalitis,CAE), Hypoderma spp., Neospora caninum, Mycoplasma spp. and pestiviruses (Border disease, BD) play an important role in goat farming in Lithuania. Unfortunatelly, there is a lack of information on the prevalence and epidemiological situation of these pathogens in the Lithuanian goat population.

Material and Methods: A study covering multiple pathogens was conducted from 2021 to 2024. In total, 30 herds of goats from various regions of Lithuania were tested, and 380 blood samples from v. jugularis using blood collection tubes with clot activator were collected. Bood serums were analyzed for antibodies by Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assays (ID.vet, Innovative Diagnostics, France). The final evaluation of the reaction was performed by measuring the optical density of the liquid with a spectrophotometer (BioTek Synergy Mx), and the presence or absence of antibodies in the sample was determined by differences in color intensity.

Results: Antibodies to toxoplasma (38.9%, 143/368) and CAE viruses (19.5%, 74/380) were most detected in the samples.
Antibodies to mycoplasma (0.3%, 1/368), hypoderma (3.8%, 7/184), and neospora (0.5%, 2/368) were detected in isolated cases.

Antibodies to border disease virus and Q fever were not detected. Mixed infections accounted for 7.6% of all tested samples, and only toxoplasmosis + CAE had a statistically significant association (χ2 = 19.05, p < 0.001). CAE was the only disease significantly affected by herd size (ꭓ2 = 7.913, df = 1, p < 0.05).

Conclusions: Toxoplasmosis and CAE are the most epidemiologically relevant diseases in this population, and toxoplasmosis is the most common component of mixed infections.

Acknowledgements: This research was granted by CAE-RAPID project, ID:39.