Abstract :
Enterotoxaemia vaccine is a polyvalence vaccine from different types of Clostridium perfringens,
and C. septicum toxins that prevents various diseases, the most important one being
enterotoxaemia in sheep. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the enterotoxaemia
vaccine effects in reducing isolates of intestinal clostridia genus specifically C. perfringens.
Sheep dung samples were randomly collected from 10 places in Kerman, Iran. The samples
were taken from 90 vaccinated Kermani sheep against enterotoxaemia and 50 unvaccinated
sheep of same age from flocks with similar management. Following processing and
culture of the samples, colonies were identified applying morphological, gram stain and
biochemical tests. Using these tests C. perfringens were isolated from 27 out of 50 unvaccinated
sheep (54.0%) and from 2 out of 90 vaccinated sheep (2.2%). All of the clostridia
isolates were analyzed by multiplex PCR. Genotyping of 2 strains isolated from the vaccinated
sheep indicated that these strains were type D, while the strains isolated from the
unvaccinated sheep were types A, B, C and D; 14.8% (4 out of 27), 22.2% (6 out of 27), 40.7%
(11 out of 27) and 22.2% (6 out of 27), respectively. However, no isolate containing the iota
gene (type E) was detected. Vaccination against enterotoxaemia had a significant effect
(P < 0.01) on reducing C. perfringens isolates. Occurrence of the disease in the vaccinated
and unvaccinated groups was 3.3% and 64.0% (P < 0.01), respectively.
