Impacts & Issues
Description of the economic and cows’ health impacts of Cryptosporidiosis in the 2 seas area
What are the main issues ?
Cow Health Concerns
Cryptosporidiosis is a major health issue for the reared animals. It causes diarrheas in calves from 4 to 15 days. This disease can induce mortality in 5 to 10% cases, or rarely in 30 % cases if Cryptosporidiosis is associated with other pathogens. In countries from the 2-Seas area, Cryptosporidium prevalence is high and ranges from 45% to 74% (Fig. 1).
Human Health Concerns
Cryptosporidiosis is present both in developed and developing countries. Prevalence is stronger in developing countries due to there being a larger immunodeficient population and lower levels of hygiene. Cryptosporidiosis is estimated to cause more than 200 000 deaths per year (ref).
Cryptosporidium can be considered as a potential bioterrorist agent, thus, it is important to improve the detection tools and instruments in the future.
Economic Issue
Cryptosporidiosis can have a strong economical impact: in 1993 in Milwaukee (USA), 403 000 contaminated people led to an estimated cost of $100 million. For dairy cow farms this parasite’s economic impact is due to: loss of productivity, cost of treatment, the lack of in situ detection tools, additional labour costs, impaired growth rate of the calves and the costs of their disposal.
No precise value on economic impact on dairy cow farms is available. One purpose of the H4DC project is to define exactly the loss of money caused by Cryptosporidiosis.
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References:
- Bartels, et al., Prev Vet Med 2010; Meganck et al., Prev Vet Med 2015
- Jérôme Follet, Karine Guyot, Hélène Leruste, Anne Follet-Dumoulin, Ourida Hammouma-Ghelboun, et al.. Cryptosporidium infection in a veal calf cohort in France: molecular characterization of species in a longitudinal study.. Veterinary Research, BioMed Central, 2011, 42 (1), pp.116. ff10.1186/1297- 9716-42-116ff. ffinserm-00660464f
- Thomas Geurden, Dirk Berkvens, Peter Geldhof, Jozef Vercuysse, Edwin Claerebout, A Bayesian approach for the evaluation of six diagnostic assays and the estimation of Cryptosporidium prevalence in dairy calves (2006), INRA, EDP Sciences, Vet. Res. 37, 671–682 671, doi: 10.1051/vetres:2006029
- Beth Wells al., Prevalence, Species identification and genotyping Cryptosporidium from livestock and deer in a catchment in the Cairngorms with a history of a contaminated public water supply (2015), Parasites & Vectors ,8:66, doi: 10.1186/s13071-015-0684-x