Occurrence of Salmonellae in Healthy Farm Cattle and Bovine Salmonellosis in Tanzania

Abstract

The occurrence of Salmonella infection in dairy cattle in Tanzania was investigated in 1,495 apparently healthy cattle. Cattle were screened for Salmonella on 18 farms located in five geographical regions of Tanzania and clinical cases of salmonellosis were monitored on five farms surrounding Morogoro town. Six out of the 18 herds were found to be infected. Only calves were found to be infected at the rate of 1.8%. Six salmonella serotypes were isolated viz: S. typhimurium (two), S. zega (two), S. somone (one), S. chandans (one), S. amager (one) and S. grumpensis (one).  Six sporadic incidents of bovine salmonellosis were reported   from two farms out of the five monitored in Morogoro.          Five serotypes were involved, namely:

S. typhimurium (two), S. tabligbo (one), S. chandans (one), S. heidelberg (one) and Salmonella I, 28: d: (26) (one). It is concluded that the sporadic nature of bovine salmonellosis and the low Salmonella infection rate in dairy cattle in Tanzania may partly be explained by the following reasons: semi - intensive husbandry, unavailability of commercial cattle feeds at the time the study was conducted, hot and dry weather for most of the year