Chlamydophila abortus infection in a flock of goats in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

________________________________________________________________________________________ KRKALIC, L., E. SATROVIC, T. GOLETIC, P. DŽAJA, K. SEVERIN: Chlamydophila abortus infection in a fl ock of goats in Bosnia and Herzegovinaa case report. Vet. arhiv 85, 359-368, 2015. ABSTRACT The aim of this research was to determine the presence of Chlamydophila abortus (C. abortus) infection in one fl ock of goats with a previously recorded history of reproductive failures (abortion, stillbirths, weak born kids) and long-term poor reproductive performances. The affected fl ock was from the southern region of Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) and consisted of 48 goats kept in semi-intensive conditions. Blood samples and vaginal swabs were collected twice during 2012 and 2013 and the sample size was estimated at a 95 % confi dence level, with predicted prevalence of 20 %, using the recommendations for determining the required sample size necessary to detect the presence of disease in a fl ock. A representative sample from this fl ock was taken by simple random sampling. In the total of 12 blood sera that were tested for the specifi c antibodies against C. abortus, with the use of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (CHEKIT® Chlamydophila abortus Antibody Test Kit), the results showed that 11 (91.7 %) sera were positive for C. abortus antibodies. Vaginal swabs from all animals were analysed by a modifi ed Chlamydiaceae-specifi c rtPCR test, targeting the 23S rRNA gene, to determine the presence of known Chlamydiaceae, and three (25 %) samples were positive. These positive samples were subsequently tested with a test targeting the ompA gene region (ompA-rtPCR) specifi c for Chlamydophila abortus. All three samples were also positive using this test.