Commercialisation of the FECPAKg2 System to Speciate Protozoan Infections in Livestock

牛羊易受艾美拉属原生寄生虫的消化道球虫感染。艾美耳球虫感染是宿主特异性的，该属中的一些致病性物种与临床疾病相关；其他共感染的艾美耳球虫种类经常存在，但不被认为是重要的病原体。年幼的动物最容易受到球虫病的影响，因为它们的免疫力较低，尽管动物可能在其一生的任何阶段受到影响。该病全年可见，但在一年中的潮湿季节最为常见。球虫感染可引起严重的腹泻，导致肠道吸收能力丧失。因此，动物遭受体重减轻、疼痛和漫长的恢复期，这可能增加继发性细菌感染的易感性。这往往导致长时间的延迟，饲养成本增加，与治疗相关的费用（包括劳动力和药品）以及福利方面的考虑。这些对牛群/羊群生产的重大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简单的粪便检测球虫卵囊的存在，但仅凭囊肿数量的结果解释是具有挑战性的，应与临床评估相结合。包括物种形成是非常有益的，以确定病原艾美拉氏体的存在，并告知治疗决策。目前的物种形成实践要求卵囊的孢子形成进入其生命周期的下一个阶段（需要3-5天），然后由高度熟练的技术人员进行显微镜检查。由于从外部实验室到兽医实践获得结果所花费的成本和时间，很少进行物种形成。相反，农民在压力下迅速处理福利和生产力问题，通常会对动物进行无针对性的治疗。为了响应快速感染诊断（卵囊量化）和物种形成（种群分化）的需求，我们之前的项目证实，使用数字成像检测原生动物寄生虫是可行的，并且使用自动图像识别软件（机器学习）可以直接从粪便样本中客观地确定现场种群，而不需要孢子（例如即时诊断）。Techion开发的FECPAKG2系统是一个快速的农场诊断平台，目前用于粪便卵计数，以检测反刍动物和马科动物的寄生线虫和吸虫感染。该系统经过改进，可以对艾美耳虫卵囊进行放大和数字成像，该提案将着眼于进一步的产品开发，直至特定球虫测试的商业化。

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.