Elsevier

Preventive Veterinary Medicine

Seroprevalence and risk factors of Neospora caninum infection in cattle in China from 2011 to 2020: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Neosporosis is a worldwide infectious disease caused by the obligate intracellular parasite protozoan Neospora caninum (N. caninum ), which has a heteroxenous life cycle and affects a wide range of warm-blooded animals, especially canines and cattle. Here, a meta-analysis was conducted to assess the overall seroprevalence and potential risk factors for N. caninum infection among cattle in China. The VIP Chinese Journal Databases (VIP), PubMed, WanFang, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and ScienceDirect databases were employed for a comprehensive search for relevant studies published from 2011 to 2020. A random-effects model was used to calculate the pooled seroprevalence estimated with 95% confidence intervals. The pooled N. caninum seroprevalence in cattle was estimated to be 12.2%. The highest seroprevalence of N. caninum infection in cattle was in Southern China (20.9%), while the lowest seroprevalence was in Northwest China (9.4%). The seroprevalence of N. caninum in the sub-group 2022 or later (10.2%) was lower than that in 2012–2015 (20.7%) and before 2012 (17.2%). Yaks were the least infected species of cattle (7.3%; Yellow cattle 18.1%; Buffalo 7.8%; Dairy cattle 21.5%). Cattle aged > 5 years had higher seroprevalence (20.7%) than that aged 3–5 years (10.7%) and < 3 years (14.2%). In season subgroups, the lowest N. caninum seroprevalence was found in summer (21.3%). Free ranging cattle had a 27.2% seroprevalence of N. caninum, which was higher than 7.8% in stall-feed cattle. The seroprevalence of N. caninum in female (22.6%) cattle was higher than in males (13.4%). Meanwhile, the prevalence was higher as increased parity and abortion. The results indicated that N. caninum infection in cattle was widely distributed in China. We recommend that more attention should be paid to the management of sanitary conditions for breeding in the areas with rich and warm water sources. In addition, it would appear to be prudent and feasible to selectively cease breeding for N. caninum seropositive animals in herds with low prevalence and farmers should not feed aborted fetuses to dogs on farm.

Introduction

Neosporosis is a worldwide infectious disease caused by the obligate intracellular parasite protozoan Neospora caninum, which has a heteroxenous life cycle and affects a wide range of warm-blooded animals (Dubey, 1999, Gondim et al., 2004, Dubey et al., 2007). Canines are the definitive host of N. caninum (Ribeiro et al., 2019). They can be infected by N. caninum through ingestion of meat or other tissues (e.g. placenta, nervous tissues) of intermediate hosts (mainly cattle, and other species, e.g. sheep, horse, and pig) who carry the pathogen. Subsequently, the oocysts are excreted into the environment after developing in the intestines of canines (Silva and Machado, 2016). The disease develops in animals, especially cattle, through two major routes, including trans-placental transmission from mother to fetus, and ingestion of oocytes shed by infected canids (Anderson et al., 2000, Ansari-Lari, 2020).

N. caninum is particularly pathogenic to cattle, and considered to be one of the most important transmissible causes of reproductive failure in cattle (Asmare et al., 2013, Nolan et al., 2015). In addition to abortion, bovine neosporosis is associated with stillbirths or the occasional birth of premature or neurologically impaired calves (Micheloud et al., 2015). The clinical symptoms include nerve death, partial spinal cord defect, poor proprioceptive sensation, lack of balance in the hind limbs, poor conscious proprioception of the rear limbs, and inadequate, which may lead to a huge economic loss (McAllister, 2016).

Beef industry is an important part of China's animal husbandry and meat production (Li et al., 2018). During the 21st Century, the change of life style in China has opened up the market for beef and milk products, and China has become a major player in the global beef and milk industries in the aspects of production, consumption, and trade (Zan et al., 2015). In terms of production, China is the third beef and milk producer in the world and the largest one in Asia (Li et al., 2018, Chen, 2018). However, the infection of N. caninum in cattle is widespread in China and may lead to a huge economic loss (Liu et al., 2007). Meanwhile, a systematic assessment and meta-analysis for the seroprevalence of N. caninum infection in cattle in China is still absent. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to estimate pooled seroprevalence of N. caninum and identify potential risk factors (e.g. sex, species, age, and geographic location) in cattle during the last decade.

Section snippets

Search strategy

This study was conducted according to the preferred reporting project of Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines (Table S1; Moher et al., 2009; Moher et al., 2015). In this study, the English and Chinese literature related to the prevalence of N. caninum among cattle breeding in China from 2011 to 2022 were searched in five databases, including VIP, WanFang, PubMed, CNKI, and ScienceDirect. The keywords "Neospora caninum", "Prevalence", "Cattle", and "China" were used to search

Search results and eligible studies

A total of 906 published studies were retreived through searching for related references in five databases. According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 41 studies containing data from 19 provinces were used for the meta-analysis (Fig. 1; Table 2 and S4). Finally, 24 publications were scored 4 points, 12 publications were scored 3 points, 4 publications were scored 2 points, and 1 publication was scored 1 point (Table 2 and S19).

Pooling and heterogeneity analyses

Forest plot was used to measure and show the

Discussion

In cattle, neosporosis causes mainly miscarriage or stillbirth of pregnant animals and motor nerve disorders of newborns, which is particularly harmful to cattle and is the main cause of bovine abortion (Silva and Machado, 2016). Therefore, a meta-analysis was conducted to assess N. caninum seroprevalence in cattle in Chinese mainland, which might have a great significance to health of cattle and related control measures.

In this work, it was found that the infection prevalence varies according

Funding

This work was supported by grant from Heilongjiang Bayi Agricultural University support Program for San Heng San Zong (TDJH202002).

Ethical approval

None required.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Xin-Yu Wei: Data analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Qi An: Writing – original draft. Nian-Yu Xue: Data analysis, Writing – review & editing. Yu Chen: Writing – review & editing. All authors contributed to the manuscript editing and approved the final version.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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