Mycoplasmas cause some of the most economically important diseases of sheep and goats, including diseases listed by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) such as contagious caprine pleuropneumonia (CCPP) and contagious agalactia (CA). Other important mycoplasma diseases include chronic respiratory and arthritic syndrome (CRAS) and atypical pneumonia, both present on all continents where small ruminants are farmed. Unfortunately, owing to a lack of investment, most commercial vaccines for these diseases are of poor quality, being mostly composed of killed bacteriocins of dubious or unknown efficacy. Several Mediterranean laboratories produce autogenous vaccines, but these can only be used on farms where outbreaks have been officially declared, and consequently have limited impact on disease nationally. Effective live vaccines are available, but their use is often restricted because of safety concerns. With the necessary safeguards in place, we argue for their greater use. This review examines reported vaccines for mycoplasma diseases of small ruminants and attempts to identify new candidate antigens that may enable the development of improved products. Vaccines for CCPP are covered elsewhere.

Objectives: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus (MRS) has originated, spread extensively, and become a prominent source of bacterial infections in both human and animal.Methods: We report the prevalence, genetic diversity, and antimicrobial resistance pattern of Staphylococcus pseudintermedius and Staphylococcus aureus strains isolated from dogs and cats with eye discharges.Results: A total of 12 (6.0%) coagulase-positives staphylococci were identified as (6/200, 3%) S. aureus and (6/200, 3%) S. pseudintermedius. The phenotypic methicillin resistance of S. aureus and S. pseudintermedius were 50.0% (3/6) and 16.7% (1/6), respectively. None of the isolates showed biofilm formation in the microtiter plate assay. The highest resistance (50.0%) for S. pseudintermedius strains was detected against clindamycin and tetracycline. 67.0% of S. aureus isolates were resistant to penicillin-G. The PCR analysis conducted for detection of mecA gene indicated that only one S. aureus isolated from a cat was mecA gene positive. Phylogenetic analysis based on repetitive sequence-based PCR (rep-PCR) showed that all strains were typable and generated PCR products ranging from 800 bp to 4,400 bp. The lineages ST241 and the novel ST2361 in multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) analysis were detected in one methicillin-susceptible S. pseudintermedius and methicillin-resistant S. pseudintermedius of dogs, respectively. In addition, the lineages ST4155 and ST7217 of two methicillin-resistant S. aureus strains of cats were connected epidemiologically to previously reported cases.Conclusions: These results indicate epidemiologically related strains (ST241, ST4155, and ST7217) transferring between animals and humans. Therefore, the strategies to combat the widespread MRS should be based on collaboration between human and veterinary medicine under the One Health concept.

Objective: The objective of this study is to compare the pregnancy outcomes of the couples who underwent Hypo-Osmotıc Swelling Test (HOST) as a sperm selection method in Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) – Frozen embryo transfer (ET) cycles and those who did not. Methods: ICSI – Frozen ET cycles, employing HOST as a sperm selection method were assigned to the Study Group; whereas those not employing HOST were included in the Control Group. Both study and control groups were divided into two subgroups according to the age of the women; those between the 25-35 years old and those between 36-40. The study and the control group included 509 and 1304 patients; respectively. Patients between 25-40 years old, who received Invitro fertilization (IVF) treatment for the first time, had good quality (grade A) blastocyst embryo on the 5th day, had normal semen parameters and HOST scores of b, c, and d were included in the study. Results: Pregnancy outcomes were comparable between cycles using HOST and not using HOST in 25-35 years group. However, cycles employing HOST showed significantly higher pregnancy rate (p = 0.023), clinical pregnancy rate (p = 0.005), and live birth rate (p = 0.045) as compared to cycles not using HOST, in the 36-40 years group. Conclusion:With normal semen parameters, the use of HOST in ICSI-Frozen ET cycles does not increase live birth rates in women aged 25-35, while it increases the rate of live births in women aged 36-40.