Abortions in domestic ruminants cause significant economic losses to farmers. Determining the cause of an abortion is important for control efforts, but it can be challenging. All available diagnostic methods in the bacteriology laboratory should be employed in every case due to the many limiting factors (autolysis, lack of history, range of samples) that complicate the investigation process. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the recovery of diagnostically significant isolates from domestic ruminant abortion cases could be increased through the use of a combination of the existing aerobic culture and Brucella selective method with methods that are commonly recommended in the literature reporting abortion investigations. These methods are examination of wet preparations and impression smears stained by the modified Ziehl-Neelsen method, anaerobic, microaerophilic, Leptospira, Mycoplasma and fungal culture. Samples of placenta and aborted foetuses from 135 routine clinical abortion cases of cattle (n = 88), sheep (n = 25) and goats (n = 22) were analysed by the new combination of methods. In 46 cases, bacteria were identified as aetiological agents and in one case a fungus. Isolation of Brucella species increased to 7.4% over two years compared with the previous 10 years (7.3%), as well as Campylobacter jejuni (n = 2) and Rhizopus species (n = 1). Salmonella species (5.9%) and Trueperella pyogenes (4.4%) were also isolated more often. In conclusion, the approach was effective in removing test selection bias in the bacteriology laboratory. The importance of performing an in-depth study on the products of abortion by means of an extensive, combination of conventional culture methods was emphasised by increased isolation of Brucella abortus and isolation of C. jejuni. The combination of methods that yielded the most clinically relevant isolates was aerobic, microaerophilic, Brucella and fungal cultures.

The study is the result of analyzing 16 895 blood smears of cattle collected at 180 sites in the provinces of Manica, Sofala, Zambézia and Tete in Mozambique. Of the blood smears 73.9 % were from Manica, 11.8 % from Tete, 8.5 % from Sofala and 5.8 % from Zambézia; 75.6 % of these were collected from smallholder cattle. Infections with trypanosomes were highest in smallholder cattle from Sofala Province with 36.8 % of the 872 blood smears examined positive for trypanosomes, and lowest in cattle of commercial farmers in Manica Province with only 6.2 % of 2 252 blood smears being positive. Trypanosoma congolense was the predominant species, followed by Trypanosoma vivax and Trypanosoma brucei sensu lato. Trypanosoma brucei, which also infects humans, was more frequent in the districts of Buzi, Mutarara and Morrumbala with 15.1 %, 10.5 % and 9.8 % of all examined cattle in 2005 being infected with it, respectively. The results show a significant increase in the infection rate with trypanosomes compared with results obtained in previous years by the Regional Veterinary Laboratory in Manica Province and by the Regional Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis Control Programme in Zambézia, Tete and Sofala provinces.