AVA Conference Adelaide 2016

After what had been considered the benign presence of the organism in Queensland cattle for more than a century, Bovine anaemia caused by the Theileria orientalis group became an emerging disease of cattle in north-east NSW, with a sharp increase in the number of clinical outbreaks from 2007 onwards. A group of stakeholders met in September 2009 to agree on a national case definition for the condition and extension of available knowledge, to prioritise research directions and projects, and to develop a national education and communication plan. The agreed broad areas of research were: the aetiology and transmission of the disease; the prevalence of the disease, the organism and its vector(s); diagnostics, therapy and economic impact. In the ensuing 6 years, Meat and Livestock Australia funded a suite of research projects into the condition. Molecular diagnostics enabled the discovery that more than one type of T orientalis were present and that the Ikeda type was consistently implicated in cases of clinical disease and was probably a relatively new arrival to the country. Buparvaquone was chosen as a candidate chemotherapeutic and residue assay and depletion data generated. Further research confirmed that Haemaphysalis longicornis was a biological vector of the infection in Australia, but that mechanical transmission by various means could not be ruled out