Bloodborne pathogens in beef herds – a Kansas practitioner’s perspective

Abstract

Management options for bloodborne diseases depend on preva­lence (herd level and geographic), disease stage and production class. Opportunities to manage disease can be classified ac­cording to disease stage. Newer studies show that, in contrast to older studies, there is not currently a known legal way to clear animals of anaplasmosis. The only currently labeled products for treatment of acute clinical anaplasmosis are injectable oxy­tetracyclines. For a time, an enrofloxacin product (Baytril-CA) was marketed with a label for treatment of anaplasmosis, but the conditional approval application has been withdrawn. Op­portunities for leukosis management are limited to exposure control as there are no effective treatments for animals in the clinical stage and no effective methods to clear infected non-clinical animals. Due to the relatively high prevalence in beef herds, a strict test-and-cull strategy is not practical. Instead identifying animals with high pre-viral load who are most infectious provides an option to decrease disease levels with reasonable economics at the farm level. More research is neces­sary to fully quantify production effects for carrier animals of both bovine leukosis and anaplasmosis.