Understanding and Managing Diarrhea in Large Animals

Animal diseases in production and subsistence environments have the potential to negatively affect consumers, producers, and economies as a whole. A growing global demand for animal sourced food requires safe and efficient production systems. Understanding the burden of animal disease and the distribution of burden throughout a value chain informs policy that promotes safe consumption and efficient markets, as well as providing more effective pathways for investment. This paper surveys existing knowledge on the burden of animal disease across economic categories of production, prevention and treatment, animal welfare, and trade and regulation. Our scoping review covers a lot of papers across peer-reviewed journals and reports published by organizations. We find there exists a gap in knowledge in evaluating what the global burdens of animal diseases are and how these burdens are distributed in value chains. We also point to a need for creating an analytical framework based on established methods that guides future evaluation of animal disease burden, which will provide improved access to information on animal health impacts. An economic simulation was carried out over 183 milk-producing countries to estimate the global economic impacts of 12 dairy cattle diseases and health conditions: mastitis (subclinical and clinical), lameness, paratuberculosis (Johne’s disease), displaced abomasum, dystocia, metritis, milk fever, ovarian cysts, retained placenta, and ketosis (subclinical and clinical). Estimates of disease impacts on milk yield, fertility, and culling were collected from the literature, standardized, meta-analyzed using a variety of methods ranging from simple averaging to random-effects models, and adjusted for comorbidities to prevent overestimation. These comorbidity-adjusted disease impacts were then combined with a set of country-level estimates for lactational incidence or prevalence or both, herd characteristics, and price estimates within a series of Monte Carlo simulations that estimated and valued the economic losses due to these diseases. It was estimated that total annual global losses are US$65 billion (B). Subclinical ketosis, clinical mastitis, and subclinical mastitis were the costliest diseases modeled, resulting in mean annual global losses of approximately US$18B, US$13B, and US$9B, respectively. Estimated global annual losses due to clinical ketosis, displaced abomasum, dystocia, lameness, metritis, milk fever, ovarian cysts, paratuberculosis, and retained placenta were estimated to be US$0.2B, US$0.6B, US$0.6B, US$6B, US$5B, US$0.6B, US$4B, US$4B, and US$3B, respectively. Without adjustment for comorbidities, when statistical associations between diseases were disregarded, mean aggregate global losses would have been overestimated by 45%. Although annual losses were greatest in India (US$12B), the United States (US$8B), and China (US$5B), depending on the measure of losses used (losses as a percentage of gross domestic product, losses per capita, losses as a percentage of gross milk revenue), the relative economic burden of these dairy cattle diseases across countries varied markedly.

INTRODUCTION

• What is diarrhea in large animals?
• Why does quick treatment matter for herd health and farm profitability?
• Which therapies including rehydration, antimicrobials, and Diastop work best in different situations?
• How do I prevent diarrhea from reentering my herd?

Diarrhea is a commonly reported disease and a major cause of economic loss to cattle producers.The 2007 National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS) for U.S. dairy reported that 57% of weaning calf mortality was due to diarrhea and most cases occurred in calves less than 1 month old. A similar mortality rate (53.4%) for dairy calves due to calf diarrhea was recently reported in Korea. The economic loss associated with calf death in Norway where calf production is 280,000 heads per year was estimated to be approximately 10 million US dollars in 2006. (nih) Livestock disease externalities negatively impact production and distort values due to domestic and international market shocks resulting in market inefficiencies. Herd health and sustainability of commercialized livestock product markets, as well as their growth to support demand, and smallholder farming systems are threatened by livestock disease outbreaks and occurrences in production. Livestock diseases can also encourage unsustainable and damaging practices. For example, antibiotics to promote growth may be used to increase animal size or address persistent infections, but the overuse of antibiotics may then contribute to adverse societal impacts, such as antimicrobial resistance. Establishing effective protocols that protect animal welfare and farm profitability needs an understanding of the complex relationships across environmental stressors, nutritional factors, and infectious agents that lead to diarrhea. (Frontiers)

What is diarrhea in large animals?

Diarrhea in large animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, and camels is most commonly associated with enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli, Cryptosporidium parvum, rotavirus, Coccidia, coronavirus, or some combination of these pathogens.