Clinico-pathological and haematological findings in goat kids experimentally infected simultaneously with Mycoplasma mycoides subsp. capri and Mycoplasma mycoides subsp. mycoides (large colony-type)

Abstract

In this paper we describe an experimental clinical and haematological study in five goat kids 1 week of age. The animals were inoculated with two species of mycoplasma belonging to the M. mycoides cluster, which had been previously isolated simultaneously from a caprine pleuropneumonia outbreak in Gran Canaria (Canary Islands). The experimental infection showed an acute septicaemic clinico-pathological picture with lethal outcome. The lesions in lungs were characterised by acute bronchopneumonia and interstitial pneumonia. The haematological data were as follows: lymphocytic and neutropenic leukopenia, an increase in prothrombin time and activated partial thromboplastin time, a decrease in Antithrombin III, fibrinogen and thrombocytopenia. These data were associated with a severe diffuse microthrombosis demonstrating the central role of the disseminated intravascular coagulation in this mycoplasma infection. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.