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Respiratory diseases particularly lamb pneumonia is a multifactorial disease involving the interaction between host, etiological agent and environment. The present study was carried out to determine the causative agent of an outbreak of pneumonia in a sheep flock and to establish its pathogenicity and public health importance. The incidence occurred in sheep unit at Madhurikund farm of University (DUVASU), Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, India. At the time of incidence, the population of sheep at the farm was 90. Affected animals were clinically examined and nasal swabs and blood samples were collected from live animals, while morbid materials were collected from dead animals after postmortem examination. The etiological agent was isolated and characterized with conventional microbiological and biochemical methods. Streptococcus pneumoniae was the bacteria isolated from blood, different organs and cerebrospinal fluid. The antibiotic sensitivity revealed resistant to multiple drugs viz., penicillin, tetracycline, erythromycin, chloramphenicol, enrofloxacin and ciprofloxacin. Pathological examination revealed multiple involvements of organs with different degrees of inflammation and haemorrhages of the lower respiratory tract, lungs, liver, heart and kidney. Further, its pathogenicity was established by histopathological examination. In conclusion, presence of multi drug resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae in weaning lambs with the involvement of multiple organs appears to be an emerging zoonotic threat to human particularly in shepherds. This seems to be the first report of isolation of multi drug resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae from outbreak in lambs with multiple organ involvement in India.

An outbreak of invasive disease, including pneumococcal bacteremia, meningitis, and pneumonia, involved 17 of 83 (20.5%) chimpanzees at a primate rehabilitation unit. Invasive disease was more common in splenectomized than in nonsplenectomized animals (42.9% vs 18.4%), but the difference was not statistically significant. The outbreak followed closely an outbreak of upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) that occurred with equal frequency in splenectomized and nonsplenectomized chimpanzees. Those with URTI were 5.7 times as likely to develop invasive disease than those without URTI (P less than 0.005). Fourteen of 20 (70%) chimpanzees with recent URTI and serologically examined had a 4-fold or greater rise in titer to parainfluenza type 3 virus. The outbreak of invasive disease occurred despite the fact that most of the chimpanzees had been vaccinated with pneumococcal vaccine. Efficacy of pneumococcal vaccine could not be demonstrated among any segment of the chimpanzee population, and testing of sera from 23 vaccinated chimpanzees against 4 pneumococcal serotypes (3, 6, 8, and 14) failed to show a meaningful immune response. The findings demonstrated that viral URTI can predispose primates to invasive infections and suggested that pneumococcal vaccine is not protective in chimpanzees.

Epizootiological observations were made on an outbreak of pneumococcal infection occurred in 14 inbred guinea pig colonies during January to October, 1981. Monthly incidences of diseased animals ranged from 16.6 to 0%, showing the highest rate in the first month of the occurrence. Affection rates were remarkably different according to guinea pig strains, being 75% in JY-1 but 0% in JYG and Strain 2. Affected animals showed ruffled fur, dry-dirty noses, emaciated abdomen and dyspnea, and some of them were resulted in death. At necropsy, the fibrinopurulent pneumonia, pleuropneumonia and pleuritis were found as the major pathological features, and in addition, the fibrinopurulent pericarditis and peritonitis with a large amount of exudate were also observed in some cases. Streptococcus pneumoniae was isolated from nearly all the affected organs, and also from the external nares and trachea. Isolation rate from the external nares was especially high, thus 97.1% of infected guinea pigs including healthy carriers were detected by cultivation of nasal swab samples. Carrier rates of healthy animals were gradually increased from 17.2% in April to 36.5% in October, but the organism was not detected from JYG strain at all. During the observation period, vaccination, advance of weaning age of animals and administration of high vitamin C dose were taken as preventive measures of the epizootic, but no remarkable effect was obtained. The same diseased conditions were successfully produced in Hartley guinea pigs by experimental nasal infection of a pneumococcal strain isolated from this epizootic.