Ovine Respiratory Disease: A Pathway to Prevention

肺部感染是绵羊和羔羊死亡和患病的主要原因之一，尽管有一种疫苗可以对抗被认为是这种疾病的主要原因的细菌。这种疾病影响绵羊的健康和福利，但也会降低生产力，并可能通过减缓生长、延长屠宰时间和过早死亡，增加养羊对环境的影响。这个项目旨在帮助农民和兽医减少他们饲养的羊的肺部疾病。我们将增加对这种疾病的认识和了解，使那些与羊打交道的人能够做出基于证据的决定，以减少病例数量。这将有助于改善动物福利、农场盈利能力和效率，并将减少抗菌素的使用。在这个为期一年的项目中，我们将更新开发更好的解决方案所需的基本信息。养羊户将通过已建立的农民团体（放牧团体）全程参与该项目，并将与研究人员合作，评估科学发现并将其置于其农场的背景中。除了向农民提供有关其羊群和疫苗使用情况的信息外，我们还将收集参与农民农场死亡的任何绵羊的肺部样本。我们还将收集羊的样本提交给英国兽医监测网络实验室。mordun研究所最近完成的研究中已存档的羊肺样本的使用，将使实验室研究从项目一开始就可以开始。这些羊的样本将被用来找出哪些微生物是目前引起羊肺部疾病的最重要的原因。这些微生物可能直接对肺部造成损害，或通过降低动物免疫反应的有效性而使动物易患疾病。对重要生物体的进一步了解将表明目前销售的绵羊肺炎疫苗是否针对正确的病原体。通过共同努力，研究人员和农民将加深对绵羊呼吸系统疾病的了解。这种伙伴关系将允许共同开发实用的、用户友好的干预措施，从而可能迅速改善绵羊和羔羊的健康。这一信息将与更广泛的羊养殖业和兽医界共享。我们设想这项为期1年的研究是第一步，回答了立即改善所必需的重要问题，也使我们能够在未来开发更雄心勃勃和创新的方法来控制绵羊肺部疾病。

Lung infections are one of the main causes of death and illness in sheep and lambs despite there being a vaccine available against the bacteria believed to be the main causes of the disease. This disease impacts on the health and welfare of sheep but it also reduces productivity and potentially adds to the environmental impact of sheep farming through slowed growth, increased time to slaughter, and premature death.This project aims to support farmers and vets to reduce lung disease in the sheep they care for. We will increase knowledge and understanding of the disease, allowing those working with sheep to make evidence-based decisions to reduce the number of cases. This will help improve animal welfare, farm profitability and efficiency and will reduce antimicrobial usage. In this 1-year project we will update the basic information needed to develop better solutions.Sheep farmers will be involved in this project throughout via established farmer groups (grazing groups) and will work in partnership with researchers to assess the scientific findings and place them into context on their farms. In addition to information from farmers about their flocks and their vaccine usage, we will also collect lung samples from any sheep that die on the farms of the participating farmers. We will also collect samples from sheep submitted to the UK veterinary surveillance network of laboratories. The use of archived sheep lung samples from research studies which have been completed recently by the Moredun Research will allow the laboratory studies to begin right from the start of the project. These sheep samples will be used to find out which organisms are currently the most important in causing lung disease in sheep. These organisms may directly cause the damage to the lung or may predispose the animal to disease by decreasing the effectiveness of their immune response. Increased understanding of the important organisms will show whether the current vaccines sold for sheep pneumonia target the correct pathogens. Working together, the researchers and farmers will develop their understanding of respiratory disease in sheep. This partnership will allow co-development of practical, user-friendly interventions, leading to potentially rapid improvement for the health of sheep and lambs. This information will be shared with the wider sheep farming and veterinary community.We envisage this 1-year study as the first step, answering the important questions necessary for immediate improvements and also to enable us to forge ahead with developing more ambitious and innovative approaches for control of lung disease in sheep in the future.