Survey of contagious caprine pleuropneumonia in goat herds in the Thrace region of Turkey.

Contagious caprine pleuropneumonia (CCPP) was detected for the first time on the European continent in the Thrace region of Turkey in 2002 following outbreaks of an unusually severe respiratory disease in goats. Mycoplasma capricolums ubspecies capripneumoniae (Mccp), the causative agent, was identified in many infected herds throughout the region by serological, bacteriological and molecular biological techniques. However, as no quantitative data on the prevalence and distribution of the disease have been gathered in the intervening years, the extent of infection is unknown. Consequently, in 2014, a random sample of 2,400 goats was drawn from a population of over 167,000 goats in the region by multistage sampling. Serum samples were collected and tested by a monoclonal antibodybased competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (cELISA). The overall prevalence of CCPP in Thrace was found to be just over 8%. The prevalence in the individual provinces was approximately 18%, 7%, 8% and 6% for Çanakkale, Edirne, K?rklareli and Tekirda?, respectively, while Istanbul province appeared to be CCPP-free. The results showed that CCPP has spread throughout the region and has become endemic, and may pose a potential risk to the neighbouring countries of Greece and Bulgaria. Mccp was regularly detected from lung samples of suspect goats until 2015 but since then there has been no further detection from clinical samples.