Prevalence of bacterial and mycoplasma pneumonia in goats affected with pneumonia in and around Hyderabad and Orvakal of Andhra Pradesh

Introduction

Goats play a crucial role in the socioeconomic life of rural communities, particularly in less favoured regions globally. In India, goat farming focuses on meat and milk production, especially among marginal farmers. Diseases pose a significant challenge to profitable goat farming, often leading to farmer disinterest due to economic losses, particularly fatal respiratory ailments affecting goats of all ages (Hota et al. 2024) [7] . Small ruminant respiratory diseases are complex, with bacterial infections being particularly harmful due to diverse symptoms, evolving strains, disease severity, lack of vaccines, and antibiotic resistance. [12] . These respiratory diseases constitute 5.6% (Kumar et al. 2014) [11] and 3.64% Hota et al., (2024) [7] of all goat diseases, and the severity is often influenced by environmental stress, immunosuppression, poor management practices, and other predisposing factors Different species and subspecies of Mycoplasma are involved in causation of respiratory infections in small ruminants. Mycoplasma capricolum subsp. capripneumoniae (Mccp) affects lungs and causes contagious caprine pleuropneumonia (CCPP) principally in goats and occasionally in sheep and wild ruminants. Mycoplasma mycoides subsp. capri causes pleuropneumonia, arthritis and conjunctivitis mainly in goats. Mycoplasma capricolum subsp. capricolum is associated with pleuropneumonia, mastitis, arthritis and conjunctivitis in goats and sheep. Mycoplasma agalactiae is reported to be associated with mastitis, arthritis, keratoconjunctivitis, pleuropneumonia, infectious agalactia and sometimes abortion.

Results

Goats presented with history and clinical signs of dullness, anorexia, sneezing, bilateral nasal discharges, pyrexia, dyspnoea suggestive of pneumonia excluding viral etiology basing on classical clinical signs (PPR, Pox) were selected, examined and further subjected to detailed study.

During the present study, a total of 3025 goats were screened that were presented to the Veterinary Clinical Complex, College of Veterinary Science, Rajendranagar (2085), Veterinary Ambulatory clinic at Mylardevpally (760), flocks around Hyderabad (150) and a flock at Orvakal mandal of Andhra Pradesh state (30). Out of these, 492 cases were diagnosed with bacterial pneumonia, based on cultural examination of nasal swabs with an overall occurrence of 16.25%. While, 75 (2.48%) were positive for mycoplasma pneumonia in serum agglutination test using coloured antigen. Among which 20 cases were confirmed for mycoplasma pneumonia through PCR. The occurrence of pneumonia both bacterial and mycoplasma in goats presented to Veterinary Clinical Complex, Veterinary Ambulatory clinic, Mylardevpally, flocks around Hyderabad and flocks at Orvakal mandal of Andhra Pradesh were 81.70, 10.16, 4.07 and 4.07 and 73.33, 6.66, 20.00 and 0 percent, respectively.

Discussion

Out of 492 diagnosed with bacterial pneumonia, based on isolation and identification of bacteria from nasal swabs with an overall occurrence of 16.25%, that is in close agreement with Trupti et al. (2020) [22] recorded an overall prevalence of bacterial pneumonia in goats as 20.0%. In contrary, Ibrahim et al. (2016) [8] documented the overall prevalence of bacterial pneumonia in goats as 48.75%. The difference in prevalence of pneumonia in different places may be due to the various factors affecting the cause of pneumonia in goats like environmental stress, immunosuppression, and poor managemental practices. These factors vary differently in different places and can be attributed the occurrence of bacterial pneumonia at 16.25% in the present study.

In the present study the overall occurrence of mycoplasma pneumonia by slide agglutination test was at 2.48% that is closer to the findings of Ramdev et al., 2008 [16] , who documented as 5.02% in goats. Similarly, Getachew et al., 2025 [5] and Ashagire et al., 2024 [1] recorded CCPP in goats as 4.7% and 6.7% through ELISA. In contrast the seroprevalence of CCPP by SAT at 33.67% and 42.5% was observed by Ingle et al., 2008 and Roy et al., 2008 in different places in India. The overall seroprevalence of mycoplasma pneumonia detected by PCR was at 0.66% while, Rehman et al., 2022 [17] recorded at 6%. In contrast the prevalence of mycoplasma pneumonia was found to be at 22% by Khodakaram-Tafti et al., 2023 [9] , 20.24% by Suryawanshi et al., (2015) [19] . In contrary, Deepika et al. (2023) [2] documented prevalence of mycoplasma pneumonia by PCR as 55.91% and Sumith et al. (2021) [18] as 71.4%. The variation in prevalence of mycoplasma pneumonia in goats in various regions could be due to geographical variations as environmental stress; hot and humid climate that favors the precipitation of this disease. In the present study, a proportion of goats exhibiting respiratory signs were positive for Mycoplasma antibodies by Slide Agglutination Test (SAT) but negative by PCR. This discrepancy can be attributed to the fundamental differences between the two diagnostic techniques. SAT detects circulating antibodies, which may persist for weeks to months following natural infection or exposure, even after the organism has been cleared (OIE, 2021). Conversely, PCR detects Mycoplasma DNA and is dependent on the presence of sufficient organism load in the sample. In chronic cases or during the convalescent stage, bacterial shedding may be intermittent or at very low levels, leading to PCR false negatives (Ghanem et al., 2015; Nicholas et al., 2008) [6,14] .

Additionally, SAT may yield false positives due to crossreactivity with antibodies against other Mycoplasma species (Thiaucourt et al., 2000) [21] . Similar observations have been reported by earlier workers, emphasizing that SAT-positive and PCR-negative animals may either represent past exposure, chronic carriers with low organism load, or cases where respiratory signs are attributable to other bacterial pathogens (Saleh and Allam, 2014; Das et al., 2015) [20,2] .

Conflict of Interest Not available

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