Ethiopathogenesis, diagnostics and therapy of foal neonatal septicemia

Abstract

Sepsis is very frequent cause of neonatal foal deaths. It is systemic inflammation developing after infective agents break into in the foal circulation with progressive disturbance of health not responding to intensive therapy. Systemic inflammatory response and development of the shock in first phase of the sepsis development lead to massive organ damages and progression of organ dysfunction syndrome further promoting loss of homeostatic mechanisms and death of foal. During the period of three decades high mortality rate of newborn foals have been reported. Among most frequent causes of foal deaths beside EHV1 infection, bacterial sepsis mostly accompanied with insufficient colostral immunity transfer was documented. Fast development of the non-specific symptoms and shock in foals are often misleading diagnostics thus prolonging the onset of specific therapy. Therefore the effective clinical procedures, beside close observation of newborn foals, depend upon fast recognition of mechanisms of infection and shock development. Since time-consuming procedure is necessary for identification of the causative infective agent and the evaluation of its susceptibility on antibiotics, the therapy if symptomatic and include intravenous administration of fluids in aim to correct glycaemia and acid-base disturbance, antibiotic and antiendotoxic treatment, and substitutive treatment of immunoglobulin deficiency in all cases of passive immune transfer failure involved in sepsis development. .

Keywords

• foals
• neonatal infections
• sepsis
• shock
• therapy