TABLE 4-2.
DIAGNOSTIC SAMPLES AND TESTING METHODS REQUIRED FOR DIFFERENTIATION OF THE MOST COMMON CAUSES OF INFECTIOUS DIARRHEA OF LAMBS AND KIDS
| CAUSATIVE AGENT | SAMPLE REQUIRED | TEST METHOD* |
|---|---|---|
| Escherichia coli | 2 to 3 g feces | Culture and serotyping for K99 and F41 |
| Formalin-fixed small intestine | Histopathology | |
| Rotavirus | 2 to 3 g feces or colonic contents | EM, ELISA, VI, CF, PCR |
| Formalin-fixed small and large intestine | Histopathology | |
| Frozen small and large intestine | VI, FA, IP | |
| Cryptosporidia | 2 to 3 g feces | FA, fecal flotation |
| Air-dried fecal smear | Acid-fast stain | |
| Formalin-fixed small and large intestine | Histopathology | |
| Salmonella | 2 to 3 g feces | Culture, PCR |
| Formalin-fixed small and large intestine | Histopathology | |
| Frozen small and large intestine and mesenteric lymph nodes | Culture | |
| Giardia | Wet mount of feces | Iodine staining |
| Feces | ELISA, FA | |
| Clostridium perfringens | Frozen small intestinal contents and abomasum, small and large intestine | Culture, toxin identification |
| Formalin-fixed abomasum and small and large intestine | Histopathology | |
| Coccidia | 2 to 3 g feces | Fecal flotation |
| Formalin-fixed small and large intestine | Histopathology |
EM, Electron microscopy; ELISA, enzyme-linked immunospecific assay; VI, virus isolation; CF, complement luxation; PCR, polymerase chain reaction; FA, fluorescent antibody; IP, immunoperoxidase.
From Rings DM, Rings MB: Managing Cryptosporidium and Giardia infections in domestic ruminants, Vet Med 91(12):1125 1996; Cohen ND et al: Comparison of polymerase chain reaction and microbiological culture for detection of salmonella in equine feces and environmental samples, Am J Vet Res 57:780 1996; Drolet R, Fairbrother JM, Vaillancourt D: Attaching and effacing Escherichia coli in a goat with diarrhea, Can Vet J 35(2):122, 1994.
© 2002
Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.