Recognition of two species of genus Chlamydia derived from sheep, goats and cattle: Chlamydia abortus and Chlamydia pecorum

Abstract

ABSTRACT The chlamydiae are a diverse group of obligate intracellular Gram-negative bacteria that are known to infect a wide variety of host species. The present study was conducted to detect the incidence of Chlamydia abortus and Chlamydia pecorum among cattle, sheep and goats. It was carried out on two groups of animals: the first one consists of apparently healthy cattle (n=35), sheep (n=8) and goats (n=23). The second one consists of diseased cattle (n=14), sheep (n=21) and goats (n=18) with different clinical findings such as: respiratory disorders, keratoconjunctivitis, vaginitis, abortion and diarrhea and the source of specimens were fecal (n=40), nasal (n=30), ocular (n=3) and vaginal samples (n=18). Moreover samples from internal organs (n=10) and sera (n=65) were also collected.