Contagious caprine pleuropneumonia (CCPP) is a cause of major economic losses to goat producers in Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

, Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

 and the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

.

Disease is caused by members of the Mycoplasma genus

Mycoplasma

Mycoplasma refers to a genus of bacteria that lack a cell wall. Without a cell wall, they are unaffected by many common antibiotics such as penicillin or other beta-lactam antibiotics that target cell wall synthesis. They can be parasitic or saprotrophic. Several species are pathogenic in humans,...

 - usually Mycoplasma capricolum subsp. capricolum

Mycoplasma mycoides

Mycoplasma mycoides is a bacterial species of the genus Mycoplasma in the class Mollicutes.This microorganism is a parasite that lives in ruminants , causing lung disease....

 but sometimes by M. mycoides subsp. capri

Mycoplasma mycoides

Mycoplasma mycoides is a bacterial species of the genus Mycoplasma in the class Mollicutes.This microorganism is a parasite that lives in ruminants , causing lung disease....

 or M. mycoides subsp. mycoides

Mycoplasma mycoides

Mycoplasma mycoides is a bacterial species of the genus Mycoplasma in the class Mollicutes.This microorganism is a parasite that lives in ruminants , causing lung disease....

. It is extremely contagious with very high morbidity and mortality

Mortality rate

Mortality rate is a measure of the number of deaths in a population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit time...

 rates, causing an interstitial fibrinous pleuropneumonia in infected goats. Infection is spread by close-contact aerosol, therefore overcrowding and confinement increases disease incidence. Stress factors such as malnutrition

Malnutrition

Malnutrition is the condition that results from taking an unbalanced diet in which certain nutrients are lacking, in excess , or in the wrong proportions....

 and long transport can also predispose animals to disease.

Goats are the only species affected, therefore the disease is not a zoonosis

Zoonosis

A zoonosis or zoonoseis any infectious disease that can be transmitted from non-human animals to humans or from humans to non-human animals . In a study of 1415 pathogens known to affect humans, 61% were zoonotic...

. There is no age breed or sex predilection, but clinical signs are often worse in younger animals.

Clinical Signs

Affected animals normally have generalised signs such as depression, dullness, weakness and lethargy, pyrexia and weight loss and decreased production. They will also have respiratory signs including bilateral nasal discharge, dyspnoea, tachypnoea and coughing. Occasionally the only sign seen is sudden death.

Typical pathological lesions are very suggestive of the disease - they are localised exclusively to the lung

Lung

The lung is the essential respiration organ in many air-breathing animals, including most tetrapods, a few fish and a few snails. In mammals and the more complex life forms, the two lungs are located near the backbone on either side of the heart...

 and pleura. Lungs are normally a port wine colour and abundant pleural exudate

Exudate

An exudate is any fluid that filters from the circulatory system into lesions or areas of inflammation. It can apply to plants as well as animals. Its composition varies but generally includes water and the dissolved solutes of the main circulatory fluid such as sap or blood...

 and pleuritis and adhesions are common. The pleural exudates may have solidified forming a gelatinous covering.

Histological examination of the lung tissues may show acute serofibrinous to chronic fibrino-necrotic pleuropneumonia with neutrophilic inflammation in the alveoli, bronchioles, interstitial septae and subpleural connective tissue.

Diagnosis

The simplest procedure for 'in field diagnosis' is the detection of antibodies by latex agglutination (LAT)

Agglutination

In contemporary linguistics, agglutination usually refers to the kind of morphological derivation in which there is a one-to-one correspondence between affixes and syntactical categories. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative languages...

 as it is quick and simple to run, and has a long shelf-life. Other procedures used for diagnosis include growth inhibition disc tests (GI), direct and indirect fluorescent antibody tests

Immunofluorescence

Immunofluorescence is a technique used for light microscopy with a fluorescence microscope and is used primarily on biological samples. This technique uses the specificity of antibodies to their antigen to target fluorescent dyes to specific biomolecule targets within a cell, and therefore allows...

, complement fixation tests (CFT), indirect haemagglutination test (IHA), ELISA

ELISA

Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay , is a popular format of a "wet-lab" type analytic biochemistry assay that uses one sub-type of heterogeneous, solid-phase enzyme immunoassay to detect the presence of a substance in a liquid sample."Wet lab" analytic biochemistry assays involves detection of an...

 and PCR. These have varying degrees of efficacy

Efficacy

Efficacy is the capacity to produce an effect. It has different specific meanings in different fields. In medicine, it is the ability of an intervention or drug to reproduce a desired effect in expert hands and under ideal circumstances.- Healthcare :...

.

Isolation of M. capricolum subsp. capripneumoniae

Mycoplasma mycoides

Mycoplasma mycoides is a bacterial species of the genus Mycoplasma in the class Mollicutes.This microorganism is a parasite that lives in ruminants , causing lung disease....

 from clinical samples is the only way to definitively diagnose the infection but it is not normally performed as it is time consuming and difficult.

Treatment & Control

Macrolides, tetracyclines and quinolones are active against M. capricolum subsp. capripneumoniae. Disease incidence is reduced by good hygiene and husbandry practices.
Movement restrictions and slaughtering

Slaughter

-Animals:* Animal slaughter, killing animals for food** Ritual slaughter, the practice of slaughtering livestock for meat in a ritual manner*** Dhabīḥah, the prescribed method of ritual slaughter of animals excluding camels, locusts, fish and most sea life in Islamic law*** Shechita, the ritual...

infected animals are recommended for countries that are newly infected.