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Nematodes belonging to the genus Capillaria infect a range of domestic and wild animals. Capillaria aerophila and Capillaria boehmi cause respiratory parasitoses in dogs and wild carnivores, e.g., foxes and mustelids, although they are often overlooked in canine clinical practice. The present report describes an unusual case of a severe and mixed infection by C. aerophila and C. boehmi in a privately housed dog that showed acute and life-threatening respiratory and neurological signs. Clinic-pathologic and epizootiological implications are described and discussed.

Porcine circovirus 2 (PCV-2) is the causative agent of porcine circovirus diseases (PCVD). A study was undertaken to determine whether PCV-2 was present in samples collected from commercial pigs (n = 46) and warthogs (n = 42) in Namibia between 2019 and 2020. Twenty-three of the collected samples were positive by PCR (13 from pigs and 10 from warthogs), and a phylogenetic analysis of ORF2 identified three genotypes (PCV-2b and PCV-2d in pigs and PCV-2c in warthogs). This is the first time that PCV-2 has been identified in warthogs and in Namibia. It is also the first report of PCV-2c in Africa.

Contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (CBPP) is a respiratory disease of cattle that is listed as notifiable by the World Organization for Animal Health. It is endemic in sub-Saharan Africa and causes important productivity losses due to the high mortality and morbidity rates. CBPP is caused by Mycoplasma mycoides subsp. mycoides ( Mmm) and is characterized by severe fibrinous bronchopneumonia and pleural effusion during the acute to subacute stages and by pulmonary sequestra in chronic cases. Additional lesions can be detected in the kidneys and in the carpal and tarsal joints of calves. Mmm infection occurs through the inhalation of infected aerosol droplets. After the colonization of bronchioles and alveoli, Mmm invades blood and lymphatic vessels and causes vasculitis. Moreover, Mmm can be occasionally demonstrated in blood and in a variety of other tissues. In the lung, Mmm antigen is commonly detected on bronchiolar and alveolar epithelial cells, in lung phagocytic cells, within the wall of blood and lymphatic vessels, inside necrotic areas, and within tertiary lymphoid follicles. Mmm antigen can also be present in the cytoplasm of macrophages within lymph node sinuses, in the germinal center of lymphoid follicles, in glomerular endothelial cells, and in renal tubules. A complete pathological examination is of great value for a rapid presumptive diagnosis, but laboratory investigations are mandatory for definitive diagnosis. The purpose of this review is to describe the main features of CBPP including the causative agent, history, geographic distribution, epidemiology, clinical course, diagnosis, and control. A special focus is placed on gross and microscopic lesions in order to familiarize veterinarians with the pathology and pathogenesis of CBPP.

Background: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has been spreading throughout Italy since February 2020. Limited data are available regarding indications, performance characteristics and safety of bronchoscopy (which is an aerosol generating procedure) in the context of SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. Methods: We performed a prospective, observational, multicentric study to describe the role of bronchoscopy during SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Italy. Findings: 147 consecutive adult patients who underwent bronchoscopy between March 1st and April 15 th 2020 in five Italian hospitals were enrolled. 78/147 (53·1%) bronchoscopies were performed to detect SARS-CoV-2 in patients with negative nasopharyngeal swabs. SARS-CoV-2 was detected in 43/78 (55·1%) patients, without no difference in diagnostic yield between bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) and bronchial washing (BW) (35/61, 57·4% and 8/17, 47·1%; p-value: 0·45). Suspected co-infections and management of obstructive atelectasis were the main indications for bronchoscopy in 31/147 (21·1%) patients with COVID-19 (respectively 11/31 (35·5%) and 7/31 (16·1%)). Suspected non-COVID-19 lower respiratory tract infections (18/38 (47·4%) and malignancy (7/38 (18·4%)) were the main indications in 38/147 (25·8%) patients without COVID-19. Overall, bronchoscopy was successfully performed for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes in 111/147 (75·5%) cases. 8/147 (5·4%) patients had mild complications related to the procedure.No procedure-related infections for patients and healthcare workers were recorded. Interpretation: bronchoscopy is a useful technique in the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia in patients with negative swab. Endoscopic techniques may be safely and successfully performed for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes in the vast majority of the patients with or without SARS-CoV-2 illness. Funding: University of Milan Declaration of Interests: All authors declare no competing interests. Ethics Approval Statement: The study protocol was approved by the ethical committees of all the participating hospitals. Written informed consent was signed by recruited patients

Diseases of the respiratory system are known to negatively impact the profitability of the pig industry, worldwide. Considering the relatively short lifespan of pigs, lesions can be still evident at slaughter, where they can be usefully recorded and scored. Therefore, the slaughterhouse represents a key check-point to assess the health status of pigs, providing unique and valuable feedback to the farm, as well as an important source of data for epidemiological studies. Although relevant, scoring lesions in slaughtered pigs represents a very time-consuming and costly activity, thus making difficult their systematic recording. The present study has been carried out to train a convolutional neural network-based system to automatically score pleurisy in slaughtered pigs. The automation of such a process would be extremely helpful to enable a systematic examination of all slaughtered livestock. Overall, our data indicate that the proposed system is well able to differentiate half carcasses affected with pleurisy from healthy ones, with an overall accuracy of 85.5%. The system was better able to recognize severely affected half carcasses as compared with those showing less severe lesions. The training of convolutional neural networks to identify and score pneumonia, on the one hand, and the achievement of trials in large capacity slaughterhouses, on the other, represent the natural pursuance of the present study. As a result, convolutional neural network-based technologies could provide a fast and cheap tool to systematically record lesions in slaughtered pigs, thus supplying an enormous amount of useful data to all stakeholders in the pig industry.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and the related disease (coronavirus disease – 2019, COVID-19) has been notified throughout Italy since February 2020. Intensive care unit (ICU) admission rate increased following the high incidence of pneumonia-related respiratory failure [1]., Utility and safety of bronchoscopy during SARS-CoV-2 outbreak

Mycoplasma infections are commonly associated with respiratory diseases in farm animals. However, few data are currently available about the presence and the etiology of mycoplasma pneumonia in small ruminants in central Italy, a region particularly devoted to pastoralism. The present study aims to investigate retrospectively the causative agents of pneumonia in sheep and goats, a special emphasis being placed upon mycoplasmas. In total, respiratory pathogens were identified in 129 of 380 carcasses (32.36%). Mycoplasmas were detected in a high percentage of cases, alone (59 animals) or in combination with other pathogens (26 animals), Mycoplasma arginini being the most frequent species. No evidence of mycoplasma infection was demonstrated in 44 carcasses; in such animals, Mannheimia haemolytica and Pasteurella multocida were most commonly isolated. Overall, our results suggest that mycoplasma infections can contribute to a relevant portion of respiratory diseases in small ruminants and support the role of Mycoplasma arginini as a frequent cause of pneumonia in sheep. We consider that such data are of value to efficiently manage the health status of animal populations.

Post-weaning multisystemic wasting syndrome (PMWS) is a relevant, worldwide disease caused by porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2). Microscopically, PMWS is mainly characterized by lymphocytic depletion, macrophage infiltration and syncytia in lymphoid tissues. Some data suggest that follicular dendritic cells (FDCs) could be infected by PCV2, thus likely playing a role in the pathogenesis of PMWS. The present paper aims at assessing, qualitatively and quantitatively, the FDCs' network in the soft palate tonsils of clinically healthy and PMWS-affected pigs. Consecutive tissue sections were tested by immunohistochemistry to detect PCV2, FDCs and macrophages. FDCs and PCV2 antigens were quantitatively assessed by means of the Image J software and results submitted to statistical analysis. Our data demonstrated that FDCs are significantly reduced in PMWS-affected pigs compared with healthy pigs and that FDCs' depletion should be considered among microscopic features of PMWS. It is reasonable to hypothesize that depletion of FDCs further compromises the immune response and enhances the occurrence and the severity of secondary infections, which are relevant for the clinical manifestation of PMWS.

The English bulldog is notoriously predisposed to a number of disease conditions, including congenital defects, likely due to extreme genetic selection which has reduced genetic variability within this breed. The present report describes, for the first time, the main clinical and pathological features of congenital lung displacement in an English bulldog puppy. The defect involved the entire left lung, which was normally developed but rotated and shifted to the right hemithorax. The pathogenesis of congenital anomalies is largely unknown. characterisation of the genetic bases of these malformations is crucial for a reform of the breeding selection which is also aimed at correcting phenotypic abnormalities with a strong impact on individual health.

Magnetic Resonance (MR) is a non-invasive modality of choice for the evaluation of brain morphology, with superior performance as compared to other techniques. However, MR images are typically assessed qualitatively, thus relying on the experience of the involved radiologist. This may lead to errors of interpretation in the presence of subtle alterations and does not exploit the full potential of this technique as a quantitative diagnostic tool. To this end Magnetic Resonance Relaxometry (MRR), which is able to quantitively characterize the tissues under investigation through their relaxation rates, seems extremely promising. Many studies assessed the feasibility of relaxometry as a diagnostic tool in human brain disorders, with the most promising results obtained in the evaluation of neurodegenerative diseases and in the oncologic field. However, despite such extensive literature in human medicine, due to the lack of standardized protocols and the need of high-field MRI scanners, to date few studies have been performed on companion animals. In this work, first we describe relaxometry applications in human neuropathology and their possible extension to companion animals both in the experimental and clinical fields. Then, we present two experiments performed on a typical standard clinical scanner operating at 0.25 T to show that, despite the low field intensity, this technique may be promising even in the clinical setup. We tested the relaxometry protocol in a phantom study and then applied it to a real clinical case study. The results showed that this protocol used on a phantom led to a higher contrast, as compared to the standard approach. Furthermore, when applied to a real case study, this protocol revealed brain lesions undetected by the standard technique which were confirmed by a histopathological examination. These preliminary results are encouraging and support the development of this approach as an advanced diagnostic tool even in a clinical setting where low field MRI scanners are typically employed.

Clostridium perfringens type G is one of the pathogens involved in enteric diseases in poultry. NetB, a pore-forming toxin, is considered the main virulence factor responsible for necrotic enteritis during C. perfringens infection. We carried out a field study involving 14 farms to evaluate the occurrence of netB-positive C. perfringens and the impact of infection in Italian poultry flocks. Environmental samples ( n = 117) and 50 carcasses were screened by microbiologic and molecular methods. Microbiologic investigations yielded 82 C. perfringens isolates. DNA was extracted from all samples and screened for α-toxin and NetB encoding genes by real-time PCR. The C. perfringens α-toxin gene was detected in 151 of 167 extracts (90.4%), and 31 of 151 (20.5%) were netB gene positive also. Sixteen isolates from a turkey flock with mild enteric disorders were also netB positive, demonstrating their occurrence not only in broiler but also in turkey flocks. A pulsed-field gel electrophoresis protocol was optimized to evaluate the diversity among isolates and revealed high genetic heterogeneity. The complete NetB toxin-coding gene of 2 C. perfringens isolates from turkey and broiler flocks were analyzed and showed very high relatedness with analogous sequences worldwide.

In January 2019, high mortalities were reported among African Penguins (

During the past decades, a growing interest has been raised in evaluating nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) in patients with noncystic fibrosis bronchiectasis (NCFBE). This paper reviews several aspects of the correlations between NTM and NCFBE, including pathogenesis, radiological features, diagnosis, and management. Bronchiectasis and NTM lung disease are connected, but which one comes first is still an unresolved question. The rate of NTM lung disease in NCFBE varies through the studies, from 5% to 30%. The most frequent species isolated is MAC. NCFBE patients affected by NTM infection frequently present coinfections, including both other different NTM species and microorganisms, such asP. aeruginosa. Once a diagnosis of NTM disease has been reached, the initiation of therapy is not always mandatory. NTM species isolated, patients’ conditions, and disease severity and its evolution should be considered. Risk factors for disease progression in NCFBE patients with NTM are low body mass index, cavitary disease, consolidations, and macrolide resistance at presentation.

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) was detected in stools collected from wild boars in Italy, with an overall prevalence of 1.5 % (3/196). The sequence of a ~3.0-kb portion at the 3' end of the genome of one such strain, HEV/WB/P6-15/ITA, was determined. In the full-length ORF2, which encodes the capsid protein, the virus was genetically closest to wild boar and human HEV strains currently classified as genotype 3 subtype c. Interestingly, the 3' end of ORF2 of the WB/P6-15/ITA matched the 340-nucleotide (nt) sequence (94.0 % nt identity) of the human strain PeGe, identified in 2015 from a patient with acute hepatitis E in Genoa, Italy, suggesting that similar HEV strains are circulating in the same geographical setting in humans and animals.

Atypical and classical scrapie-infected sheep brain tissue was monolaterally injected into the tonsils of lambs to investigate their role as a prion entry point. We first detected classical PrP Sc within the inoculated tonsil and in the ipsilateral retropharyngeal lymph node at 3 months postinoculation (p.i.). At 7 months p.i., PrP Sc colonized other lymphoid tissues bilaterally, including ileal Peyer's patches. The earliest PrP Sc deposition within the brain was ipsilaterally observed at 9 months p.i. in the substantia reticularis of the medulla oblongata. At 12 months p.i., PrP Sc deposition was present bilaterally in the nucleus parasympathicus nervi vagi, as well as in the intermediolateral cell column of the thoracolumbar spinal cord. No PrP Sc was detected in the lambs inoculated with atypical scrapie. These findings suggest that neuroinvasion may naturally occur from the tonsil after a widespread prion replication within the lymphoid tissues during classical scrapie only, thus mimicking the pathogenesis after oral ingestion.