Immunological Studies Of Natural And Experimental Aspergillosis In Goats And Sheep

Aspergillosis, mainly a respiratory and occasionally a generalized infection caused by various species of Aspergillus especially Aspergillusfumigatus in sheep and goats so this study was designed to explore theincidence of pulmonary aspergillosis in naturally infected sheep and goats,also to study the pathogenicity of the disease of these animals in theexperimental infection and to check their possible serodiagnosis bydifferent serological tests. For attaining this goal, lungs and blood were collected from 320 sheep and 280 goats suffering from pneumonia,. (Theseanimals from Mariout Desert Research Station, Alexandria).The mycological investigation of the collected samples (pneumonic lungs) revealed that the incidence of aspergillosis was 5% and 4.6% in sheep and goats respectively.Aspergillus fumigatus constituting 3.1 % and 2.8% of sheep and goatsrespectively.Serodiagnosis of Aspergillus fumigatus by using IHA, I.D. tests and ELISA proved that from 320 serum samples of sheep 21 samples had antibodies against Aspergillus fumigatus 1180 to 112560 by IHA.,7sampleswere positive at significant titres ( equal or morOut of 280 serum samples of goats, 16 samples had antibodies against Aspergillus fumigatus at titres 1180 to 112560 by lHA test, from it 6samples were positive at significant titres, 7 serum samples were positiveby ELISA and 5 serum samples were positive by ID test.