Cerebral babesiosis in calves born from embryo transference.

Abstract

This work relates the occurence of brain babesiosis in 14 to 20 days old Simental and Limousin inbreed calves delivered from pregnant cows by embryo transference procedure. At necropsy the calves were parasitized by Boophilus microplus juvenile adults and showed splenomegaly, hepatomegaly, distended gall bladder and dark brown urine. Imprints of brain cortex region made in slides stained by Giemsa's revealed the presence of packaged erythrocytes into the capillary blood-vessels parasitized by Babesia bovis. Histologically, the brain showed severe passive congestion and perivascular edema. The liver showed vacuolar degeneration, megalocytosis and bile pigments accumulated in canaliculi. The macroscopic and microscopic results corroborate the diagnosis of infection by B. bovis in these cases. We can conclud that calves born from embryo transference have higher suscetibility to develop severe brain babesiosis.