Castle Veterinary Surgeons, Montalbo Road, Barnard Castle, Co Durham, DL12 8ED, UK.
Vet Rec. 2012 Jun 30;170(26):673. doi: 10.1136/vr.100646. Epub 2012 May 4.
Orf, a viral disease which causes proliferative skin lesions around the mouths of lambs and on the teats of ewes, has long been assumed to have production-limiting consequences. This case-control study involved the collection of data from naturally occurring outbreaks of orf in young lambs on eight commercial farms in north-east England. Measurements of weight were taken and orf lesions were scored on a numerical scale for 44 orf-affected lambs, matched to unaffected controls within the same group. Data from corresponding ewes were available from five farms. Paired t tests showed that affected lambs weighed approximately 10 per cent less than their unaffected controls for a period of at least five weeks following the start of the outbreak. The effects were highly significant whether the orf lesions affected the mouth or were found elsewhere on the body. If a lamb had orf, then there was a 82 per cent chance that its mother also had orf on its udder or teats. The financial consequences of orf in young lambs were estimated using average UK figures and conservative assumptions based on the results of this study.
口疮，一种病毒性疾病，会导致羔羊口周和母羊乳头出现增生性皮肤损伤，长期以来一直被认为会对生产造成限制。本病例对照研究涉及在英格兰东北部的 8 个商业农场中，对自然发生的羔羊口疮暴发进行数据收集。对 44 只口疮感染羔羊进行体重测量，并对其口疮病变进行数字评分，同时在同一组内匹配未受感染的对照羔羊。来自 5 个农场的相应母羊的数据也可获得。配对 t 检验显示，在暴发开始后的至少 5 周内，感染羔羊的体重比未受感染的对照羔羊轻约 10%。无论口疮病变影响口腔还是出现在身体其他部位，其影响都是非常显著的。如果羔羊有口疮，那么它的母亲在其乳房或乳头上也有口疮的可能性为 82%。根据本研究的结果和基于英国平均数据的保守假设，对羔羊口疮的经济影响进行了估计。
