PROGRESSIVE PRODUCER
VETERINARY SCHOOL FEATURES FOOTHILL ABORTION RESEARCHER AT SYMPOSIUM by University of California School of Veterinary Medicine Student Coral Alberi In February 2020, the Univeristy of California, Davis eradicate the disease through (UC Davis) School of Veterinary Medicine hosted its elimination of the tick or Beef Producer Symposium aimed at discussing issues treating cattle with repellents facing beef producers today. A lecture on the foothill expensive and ineffective. abortion, also known as Epizootic Bovine Abortion This is why UC Davis and (EBA), given by veterinary immunologist Jeffrey Stott, the California Cattlemen’s Ph.D., was particularly interesting. Stott has played a Association have partnered to very important role in the discovery of this disease develop a vaccine. and in the recent development of the vaccine. EBA EBA causes abortion in causes approximately 65,000 abortions in cattle per year naive cattle (those who have according to the Food and Agriculture News published by not been previously exposed UC Davis in 2016. This article will provide you with a © SUCKOW naturally or vaccinated and quick history and overview about EBA, including the are therefore not protected). transmission, pathogenesis and diagnosis of this elusive A cow with a healthy disease and an update about what is currently being done immune system will not show any signs of disease to prevent the devastating economic loss it causes. when infected with EBA, which has made tracking and EBA primarily occurs in California, Nevada and treating it incredibly difficult. However, the fetuses of Oregon, and was first recognized as a threat to cattle these infected cows are severely affected since their production in the 1940s. The cause of the disease immune systems are not yet developed and they cannot was not understood until the 1970s when researchers fight the infection. To diagnose EBA, characteristic determined that EBA was caused by a soft shell tick. lesions must be found in the fetus. This can be especially Many years passed before Stott and his team were able difficult to do because the fetus must be greater than to determine that the causative agent was a microbe in 100 days of gestation to have developed the lesions 2002 and identify it as a bacteria in 2005. The bacteria and it must be found, a virtually impossible task in the was recently named Pajaroellobacter abortibovis after the Pajaroello tick that carries it. P. abortibovis does not grow in laboratory culture and replicates so slowly that it evaded researchers for years. The Pajaroello tick picks up these bacteria from an unknown source and resides in the earth near sage, bitter brush, piñon pines, junipers or oaks. When animals pass through these areas, the ticks are able to access and bite them to transfer the bacteria, a process that only takes them 15 to 20 minutes to accomplish. The ticks are most active during © UC DAVIS the warmer months, May through October, and can live over ten years through Veterinary immunologist Jeffrey Stott, Ph.D., has led efforts to characterize the bacteria that cause foothill abortion disease. He has also led field trial efforts to develop a vaccine for the freezing temperatures. These common California disease. hardy traits have made efforts to
30 California Cattleman June 2020
