Chlamydial infections in animals
Chlamydophila felis : laboratory diagnosis
The diagnosis of feline chlamydiosis is difficult as a number of other infections produce
conjunctivitis and rhinitis, particularly feline calicivirus and
reovirus.
Chlamydiae may be demonstrable in conjunctival swabs (Cello,
1971) but the
number of organisms may be low. McDonald et al., (1998) described a PCR test for the detection of C. felis
DNA in conjunctival swabs. Recently, real-time quantitative PCR has been used to detect fewer than 10 genomic copies of C. felis in cats
(Helps et al., 2001).
A multi-organism reverse transcriptase,
PCR test has also been developed which
detects C. felis as well as feline calcivirus and feline herpevirus 1
(Sykes et al., 2001). C. felis infection was detected in cats from 11.5% of 104
cat-owning households, indicating that the organism is relatively common in the
domestic cat population.
NEXT: C. felis typing
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