Diagnosis of Major Poultry Diseases
Presentation of the book This book is intended to be a concise reference book for the benefit of the practicing veterinarian and the laboratory diagnostician. It provides concise description of the major diseases affecting poultry. Both traditional and state-of-the-art molecular techniques used for diagnosis are described. Prevention, control and treatment of diseases are dependent on an accurate diagnosis. Hence, it is important that an accurate diagnosis is secured promptly. Delay in securing an accurate diagnosis could have serious consequences. A variety of complementary methods are usually used to reach a diagnosis. That would include field approaches such as clinical observations and gross lesions and laboratory investigations including microscopic lesions, isolation, detection of etiologic agent(s), antigens, or nucleic acid. Other diagnostic techniques include serologic testing for antibodies to suspected etiologic agents. In chapter 1, we provide the basis and rationale for these tests and their pros and cons and interpretation of results. Four groups of diseases (viral, bacterial, fungal, and protozoal) are presented in the following 25 chapters. These chapters have a standard format of a brief introduction including the etiology of the disease followed by the main emphasis of the chapter, which is the diagnosis of the disease. For each disease, the clinical signs, gross and microscopic pathology are described. Methods of isolation or detection of the etiologic agent(s) are described followed by the applicable serologic methods for antibody detection. The authors