Doenças neurológicas de bovinos no nordeste do Brasil

Abstract

In cattle, diseases of the central nervous system (CNS) cause serious economic losses, owing to the high mortality of animals that these diseases cause. Considering that Brazil is the largest beef exporters, it is necessary to strengthen the epidemiological surveillance of SCN diseases, performing the differential diagnosis of encephalitis and encephalopathy to provide epidemiological information to agriculture defense agencies and the National Rabies Control Program and Other Brain Diseases (PNCRH). Bovine herpesvirus 5 (BoHV-5), the causative agent of bovine herpetic meningoencephalitis is one of the most important agents to be included. The objective of this work is to review the main neurological diseases of cattle in northeastern Brazil and report the occurrence of cases of necrotizing meningoencephalitis associated BoHV-5, between the years 2011-2012, in the state of Pernambuco. The clinical signs consisted of circling, blindness, nasal and ocular discharge, head pressing, muscle tremors, incoordination, and permanent lateral recumbence followed by death. At necropsy no significant changes were observed. After cutting the brain previously fixed in formaldehyde solution, softened grayish areas of granular appearance and cavitations in the cerebral cortex, midbrain, hippocampus, thalamus, basal ganglia and cerebellum were observed. Microscopically there was nonsuppurative meningitis and diffuse encephalitis with perivascular cuffs, mononuclear or undifferentiated cells and neuronal necrosis. In areas of polioencefalomalacia there was neuronophagia and the presence of Gitter cells. In the samples submitted to PCR there was amplification of DNA from BoHV-5.