Campylobacter fetus. Infertility in South West Scotland. A study of the biotypes and serotypes involved in field study

Abstract

C. fetus had been described in association with abortion in cattle and sheep and as a cause of bovine infertility. The latter is a venereal disease, resulting in asymptomatic infection in the prepucial sac of the male. It was formerly widespread in the UK. Diagnosis relies on the isolation of the organism and the demonstration of agglutinins in vaginal mucus in females of an infected herd. Since 1974, thirty outbreaks of campylobacter infertility have been diagnosed in the South West of Scotland. Biochemical methods differentiate C. fetus subsp. fetus (formerly subsp. intestinalis) from two biotypes of subsp. venerealis. Up to the present it has been thought that all venereally transmitted strains of C. fetus subsp. fetus in Britain were serotype B. However, all isolates from cases of infertility in the South West of Scotland have proved to be sero-type A, and recently C. fetus subsp. fetus serotype A has been reported from Germany. It can be concluded that all biotypes can be considered significant causes of bovine infertility and also that C. fetus subsp. fetus serotype A can be venereally transmitted.