Isolation of Streptoccocus suis capsular type 3 from a young wild boar (Sus scrofa)

Streptoccocus suis is responsible for a wide variety of infection in domestic pigs.It has been associated with meningitis, bronchopneumonia, endocarditis, arthritis, abortion and septicaemia.(Clifton-Hadley and Alexander 1988)In the most of the countries. including Croatia, where epidemiological studies have been reported, S. suis capsular type 2 appears to be the most frequently isolated type(Clifton-Hadley and Alexander 1988, Touil and others 1988) S., suis capsular type 3 has been isolated mainly from the lungs (bronchopneumonia) and less often from meninges/brain, heart and other tissue of diseased domestic pigs(ouil and others 1988)This study presents a case of streptococcal pneumonia in a young wild boar (Sus scrofa) . In a hunting -ground area of 10,000 hectares near by Zagred about 20 herds of wild boar and domestic pigs co-exist.A three month old boar died in a small herd which consisted of eight animals.The carcasae was very emaciated and dirty. The eyes were stuck together with a purulent dischrage and the conjuctivae were extremely pale.At necropsy lobar fibrinous , partialy hemorrhagic pneumonia was found together with serofibrinous pleuritis and pericarditis. The lungs, spleen and liver were submitted for bacterioligical examination.All the organs were inoculated onto horse blood agar.After 24 hours incubation at 37 C in aerobic conditions, large numbers of alpha-haemolytic streptococci were recovered from the lungs along with a coimparable number of colonies of E. coli.Altough E. coli is a common bacteria and has been formerly isolated together with S., suis.(Higgins and others 1997). is not easy to verify its role in this particular case.There were bacteria no recovered from the spleen.The alpha -haemolytic bacteria was identified biochemically according to the method described by Vecht and others (1985) as Streoptococcus suis and was sent for serotyping.The isolated strain was confirmed as a S suis capsular 3. This is believed to the first report of of S. suis from an animal other than domestic animals in Croatia and also the first report of the isolation of capsular type 3 in wild boar. The authors would like to thank Dr J Henrichsen, Statens Serum institute, Copenhagen, Denmark, for serotyping