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Diagnosis | Eimeria caviae infection

Lab Animal volume 38, pages 190–191 (2009)Cite this article

The bacteria isolated were not considered to be clinically important. A concurrent clostridial infection may have existed, but we did not carry out an anaerobic culture to evaluate this possibility.

Colonization of the intestinal tract by E. caviae causes structural and functional changes as a result of local and general disturbances. Eimeria infection may be suspected by a breeder, owner or veterinarian on the basis of history and clinical findings. Diagnosis can be confirmed by fecal examination, but fecal analysis is not straightforward and laboratory confirmation is not always possible: affected guinea pigs may not shed organisms sooner than 11 days after becoming infected but can have watery diarrhea at 10 days post-infection and die of electrolyte imbalance1. Thus, diarrhea may be present in an animal before the oocysts can be found; even when they are being shed, they may not be present in every fecal sample. E. caviae typically settles in the proximal colon and may not be present in other tissue samples, further hindering diagnosis. Therefore, a negative fecal analysis and microscopic examination does not rule out coccidiosis, and laboratory findings should be related to clinical signs for a definitive diagnosis.

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Figure 2: Transmission electron photomicrograph of a section of large intestine from young female guinea pig.

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Diagnosis | Eimeria caviae infection. Lab Anim 38, 190–191 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/laban0609-190

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