Transmission of a Chlamydia-like agent isolated from contagious conjunctivo-keratitis of sheep

Authors: Cooper BS
Publication: New Zealand Veterinary Journal, Volume 22, Issue 10, pp 181-184, Oct 1974
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

Animal type: Livestock, Production animal, Ruminant, Sheep
Subject Terms: Bacterial, Disease/defect, Infectious disease, Eye/opthalmology, Inflammation, Integument/skin/wool/hair/fur/feather, Disease transmission, Epidemiology, Notifiable organisms/exotic disease, Clinical examination, Reproduction, Rickettsia
Article class: Scientific Article

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Abstract: A specific opthalmia of sheep known as contagious conjunctivo- keratitis (CCK) and in Australasia more commonly as “pink-eye”, has been recognized for many years in the major sheep farming areas of the world. Older names such as snow blindness or heather blindness suggest that originally shepherds associated changes of climate and husbandry with outbreaks of the condition, and presumably its contagiousness was not suspected. The first significant report incriminating a micro-organism in the aetiology of the disease arose from work carried out in South Africa where Coles (1931) had observed Rickettsia-like structures in the conjunctival cells of sheep affected with CCK. Presence of the cytoplasmic inclusions was confirmed by Donatien and Lestoquard (1938) who suggested that the pleomorphic forms seen were stages in a lifecycle of the causative agent. Both in the changes within epithelial cells and also in clinical features of the conjunctive-keratitis, the same authors noted similarities between CCK and the serious blinding disease of man, trachoma…

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