Commercialisation of the FECPAKg2 System to Speciate Protozoan Infections in Livestock

牛和羊容易感染属于艾美耳球虫属种的原生动物的消化道球虫感染。艾美耳球虫感染是宿主特有的，该属中的一些致病物种与临床疾病有关；其他共同感染艾美耳球虫的物种经常存在，但不被认为是重要的病原体。年轻的动物最容易感染球虫病，因为它们的免疫力较低，尽管动物在一生的任何阶段都可能受到影响。该病一年四季都有发生，但在一年中的雨季最为常见。球虫感染可导致肠道吸收能力丧失而导致严重腹泻。因此，动物遭受体重减轻、疼痛和长期康复，这可能会增加对继发性细菌感染的易感性。这往往导致完成工作的长时间延误、喂养成本增加、与治疗相关的成本(包括劳动力和药品)以及福利考虑。这些对畜群/羊群水平生产的显著影响是畜牧业中最具经济意义的疾病之一。目前的诊断主要依赖于对球虫卵囊存在的简单粪便测试，但仅解释包囊数量的结果是具有挑战性的，应该与临床评估相结合。包括物种形成对于确定致病性艾美耳球虫的存在是非常有利的。并告知治疗决定。目前的物种形成实践要求卵囊在其生命周期的下一个阶段(需要3-5天)形成孢子，然后由高技能的技术人员进行显微镜检查。由于从外部实验室获得结果到兽医实践所需的成本和时间，很少进行物种形成。相反，农民面临着迅速处理福利和生产力问题的压力，通常会对动物进行无针对性的治疗。我们之前的项目响应了更快的感染诊断(卵囊量化)和物种形成(种群分化)的呼吁，证实了使用数字成像来检测原生动物寄生虫是可行的，并且通过自动图像识别软件(机器学习)，可以直接从粪便样本中客观地区分现场种群，而不需要孢子形成(例如立即诊断)。FECPAKG2系统由Techion开发，是一个快速的农场诊断平台，目前用于粪卵计数，以检测反刍动物和马匹中的寄生线虫和吸虫感染。该系统经过了改进，以放大和数字化成像艾美耳球虫卵囊，这项提议将着眼于进一步的产品开发，通过商业化的物种球虫测试。

Cattle and sheep are susceptible to coccidial infection of the alimentary tract with protozoan parasites belonging to the _Eimeria_ species. Eimeria infections are host-specific with a few pathogenic species within this genus associated with clinical disease; other co-infecting Eimeria species are often present but are not considered important pathogens. Younger animals are most vulnerable to coccidiosis due to their low immunity, although animals can be affected at any stage of their lifetime. Disease is observed all year round but it most common during the wet seasons of the year.Coccidial infections can cause severe diarrhoea resulting from the loss of absorptive capacity of the gut. Consequently, animals suffer weight loss, pain and protracted convalescence which can increase susceptibility to secondary bacterial infections. This often results in lengthy delays to finishing, increased feeding costs, costs associated with treatment (including labour and medicines, as well as welfare considerations. These considerable impacts on production at a herd/flock level represents one of the most economically significant diseases in the livestock industry.Current diagnosis largely relies on a simple faecal test for the presence of coccidia oocysts, but interpretation of the results on cyst numbers alone are challenging and should be paired with clinical assessment. Including speciation is highly beneficial to determine the presence of pathogenic _Eimeria_ spp. and to inform treatment decisions. Current practice for speciation requires sporulation of the oocyst to the next stage in its lifecycle (takes between 3-5 days), followed by microscopic examination by a highly skilled technician. Due to the cost and time taken to get results from external laboratories to the veterinary practice, speciation is rarely undertaken. Instead, farmers are under pressure to promptly treat welfare and productivity issues, would usually blanket treat animals with non-targeted treatment.Answering the call for quicker infection diagnoses (oocyst quantification) and speciation (population differentiation), our previous project confirmed that using digital imaging to detect protozoan parasites is feasible and with automated image recognition software (machine learning) it is possible to objectively speciate field populations directly from faecal samples with no requirement for sporulation (e.g. immediate diagnoses). The FECPAKG2 system, developed by Techion, is a rapid on-farm diagnostic platform currently used for faecal egg counts to detect parasitic nematode and trematode infections in ruminants and equids. The system was refined to magnify and digitally image _Eimeria_ oocysts and this proposal will look at further product development through to commercialisation of a speciated coccidia test.