Short Communications

Abstract

The F-38 strain of mycoplasma causes acute contagious caprine pleuropneumonia in goats in Kenya (MacOwan and Minette 1976), It has been shown to cause a disease with 100 per cent morbidity and mortality in susceptible goats under laboratory conditions (Rurangirwa and others 1981), However. when affected goats are treated with streptomycin on the third day of temperature reaction (40°C or higher), they recover from the disease and become completely immune to reinfection with F-38 (Rurangirwa and others 1981), Serum samples from such recovered goats have growth inhibiting activity against F-38 (unpublished observation), Reported below is a trial to determine whether induction of growth inhibiting antibodies in goats using inactivated F-38 antigens would also render them immune to challenge,