Isolation and antimicrobial susceptibility of Streptococcus castoreus isolated from carcasses of European beavers (Castor fiber) in Germany.

Streptococcus (S.) castoreus was isolated from seven beavers (Castor fiber), which were found dead in the federal state of Brandenburg, Germany, and submitted to the Berlin-Brandenburg State laboratory for post mortem diagnostics. The isolates originated from various inflammatory processes where they were associated with other Gram negative and Gram positive aerobic and/or anaerobic bacteria (i. e. Actinobacillus sp., species of the Actinomycetaceae family, coliform bacteria, Fusobacterium sp., Prevotella sp.), but also from cloacal swabs. Testing their antimicrobial susceptibility, all S. castoreus isolates and the type strain S. castoreus (DSM 17536) were classified as being susceptible to penicillin G, ampicillin, amoxicillin-clavulanic acid, 1st generation cephalosporins, erythromycin, tetracycline, and chloramphenicole but intermediate to gentamicin. Considering both the polymicrobial flora isolated from the inflamed tissues and the fact that antimicrobials of a narrow spectrum (namely penicillins, 1st generation cephalosporins, macrolids and lincosamids) can be toxic to rodents, chloramphenicol might be a suitable drug for treatment of beavers suffering from S. castoreus (mixed)-bacterial infections.

Enhanced passive bat rabies surveillance in indigenous bat species from Germany--a retrospective study.

In Germany, rabies in bats is a notifiable zoonotic disease, which is caused by European bat lyssaviruses type 1 and 2 (EBLV-1 and 2), and the recently discovered new lyssavirus species Bokeloh bat lyssavirus (BBLV). As the understanding of bat rabies in insectivorous bat species is limited, in addition to routine bat rabies diagnosis, an enhanced passive surveillance study, i.e. the retrospective investigation of dead bats that had not been tested for rabies, was initiated in 1998 to study the distribution, abundance and epidemiology of lyssavirus infections in bats from Germany. A total number of 5478 individuals representing 21 bat species within two families were included in this study. The Noctule bat (Nyctalus noctula) and the Common pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) represented the most specimens submitted. Of all investigated bats, 1.17% tested positive for lyssaviruses using the fluorescent antibody test (FAT). The vast majority of positive cases was identified as EBLV-1, predominately associated with the Serotine bat (Eptesicus serotinus). However, rabies cases in other species, i.e. Nathusius' pipistrelle bat (Pipistrellus nathusii), P. pipistrellus and Brown long-eared bat (Plecotus auritus) were also characterized as EBLV-1. In contrast, EBLV-2 was isolated from three Daubenton's bats (Myotis daubentonii). These three cases contribute significantly to the understanding of EBLV-2 infections in Germany as only one case had been reported prior to this study. This enhanced passive surveillance indicated that besides known reservoir species, further bat species are affected by lyssavirus infections. Given the increasing diversity of lyssaviruses and bats as reservoir host species worldwide, lyssavirus positive specimens, i.e. both bat and virus need to be confirmed by molecular techniques.