Résumé
In 2006, bluetongue (BT) virus serotype 8 emerged in northern Europe and numerous ruminants were affected in the following year. Infertility in males is one of the consequences of BT, although its severity and duration after natural infection has not been documented. In this report, the impact of BT-8 on clinical signs and semen quality of naturally infected rams is described through a longitudinal study of two Belgian ram populations (n = 12 and n = 24) and a cross sectional study in a further ram population (n = 43). Macroscopic semen characteristics, semen concentration, motility, percentage of living and dead spermatozoa were assessed in 167 semen samples collected on 1-6 occasions from 79 BT-8 infected rams within 5-138 days after onset of clinical disease. These were compared with healthy control animals. Significant changes in all variables were observed after natural BT-8 infection. Total recovery occurred around 85 days after clinical disease in animals undergoing a close follow-up of semen quality. Good correspondence between the results of the longitudinal and cross sectional studies suggests that semen quality of BT-8 affected rams reached normal references values 63-138 days after clinical diagnosis of BT. In addition, semen concentration seems to be a sound epidemiological indicator of ram semen quality.
| langue originale | Anglais |
|---|---|
| Pages (de - à) | 244-251 |
| Nombre de pages | 8 |
| journal | The Veterinary Journal |
| Volume | 182 |
| Numéro de publication | 2 |
| Les DOIs | |
| Etat de la publication | Publié - nov. 2009 |
Financement
The authors thank Benoît Bolkaerts, Christine Baricalla, Nicolas Mauguit, Laetitia Wiggers and François Claine (University of Namur) for helpful technical assistance with animals and semen sample analyses and are grateful to Delphine Cassart (University of Namur) for setting the manuscript. The collaboration with ARSIA (Association Régionale de Santé et d’Identification Animales, Ciney, Belgium) for BTV antibody determination is gratefully acknowledged, as well as the collaboration with VAR (Veterinary and Agrochemical Research Centre, Uccle, Belgium) for RTqPCR. This study was financed by the University of Namur and the University of Liège.