The protozoan Neospora caninum is a primary infectious cause of abortion in cattle that causes significant economic losses worldwide. Because effective vaccines and licensed pharmacological treatments are currently unavailable, control measures rely on biosecurity and management practice. Serological diagnosis plays a crucial role in the identification of infected animals and several tests have been developed. However, owing to the particular dynamics of the host-parasite interaction and to the characteristics of the currently used diagnostic tools, a proportion of infected cattle may not be reliably identified, and can potentially undermine efforts towards the control of bovine neosporosis. Current diagnostic methods for N. caninum infection in cattle and the advances necessary to support effective control strategies are discussed.

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The British farming industry is in its second year of the ongoing Schmallenberg virus (SBV) infection (Davies and others 2012). Work from continental eU shows the degree of herd/flock seropositivity (and possible immunity) can vary geographically (Garigliany and others 2012, Bayrou and others 2013, Beer and others 2013), presumably due to differences in vector exposure factors. The UK industry remains unsure of the extent of exposure within the national flock, since national surveillance to date has focused on the geographic spread of infection rather than the degree of exposure at flock level (AhVLA 2013). This work investigated the extent of virus exposure and, therefore, possible immunity (as determined by seropositivity to SBV) in flocks where SBV infection was confirmed or likely (due to close proximity to confirmed infection), to give farmers an indication of flock susceptibility, to aid their management decision making.Client farms wanting to understand their flock SBV exposure and, therefore, potential immunity, and with SBV exposure either confirmed or likely, were included (Table 1). Sample size calculations and subsequent data analysis were conducted using CI Analysis Software V.2.2.0 (Altman and others 2000), and approximately 60 female animals were targeted on each farm to provide an absolute error of ±4.8-11.7 per cent (ie, at the 95 per cent level of confidence a point estimate of 10 per cent seropositivity in a flock of 100 equates to a flock seropositivity of 5.2-14.8 per cent, a point estimate of 50 per cent seropositivity in a flock of 400 equates to a flock seropositivity of 38.4-61.7 per cent), which is sufficiently precise to determine high, medium and low levels of seropositivity.Following ethical review of the proposed work by two practice veterinarians experienced in clinical research (including a named veterinary surgeon) and a research veterinarian, the work was considered suitable for conduct under the Veterinary Surgeons Act, as the results would inform flock obstetric decisions at lambing, and help manage

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The Faecal Egg Count Reduction Test (FECRT) is the most widely used field-based method for estimating anthelmintic efficacy and as an indicator of the presence of anthelmintic resistant nematodes in cattle, despite never having been validated against the gold standard of controlled slaughter studies. The objectives of this study were to assess the normality of cattle faecal egg count (FEC) data and their transformed versions, since confidence intervals used to aid the interpretation of the FECRT, are derived from data assumed to be normally distributed, and violation of this assumption could potentially lead to the misclassification of anthelmintic efficacy. Further, probability distributions and associated parameters were evaluated to determine those most appropriate for representing cattle FEC data, which could be used to estimate percentage reductions and confidence limits. FEC data were analysed from 2175 cattle on 52 farms using a McMaster method at two different diagnostic sensitivities (30 and 15 eggs per gram (epg)) and a sensitive centrifugal flotation technique (SCFT) with a sensitivity of 1 epg. FEC data obtained from all egg count methods were found to be non-normal even upon transformation; therefore, it would be recommended that confidence or credible intervals be generated using either a Bootstrapping or Bayesian approach, respectively, since analyses using these frameworks do not necessarily require the assumption of normality. FEC data obtained using the SCFT method were best represented by distributions associated with the negative binomial and hence arithmetic means could be used in FECRT calculations.Where FEC data were obtained with less sensitive counting techniques (i.e. McMaster 30 or 15 epg), zero-inflated distributions and their associated central tendency were the most appropriate and would be recommended to use, i.e. the arithmetic group mean divided by the proportion of non-zero counts present; otherwise apparent anthelmintic efficacy could be misrepresented.