Sava Lazic

Scientific Veterinary Institute "Novi Sad"

Lumpy skin disease (LSD) presents constant threat to cattle production because of the high economic losses it causes. Although a lot has been done in the field of improving serological diagnostics of LSD, a reliable determination of immunity status on both herd and individual level remains problematic. In order to test the efficacy of vaccination a...

Infection of cattle with lumpy skin disease virus (LSDV) is very important from the aspect of livestock production. Although it can cause significant economic losses, available serological assays are still not sufficiently efficient and reliable. A 3-day VNT was performed using Madin-Darby bovine kidney (MDBK) cell line and LSDV isolated from clini...

During July 2018, the first clinical case of neurological West Nile virus (WNV) infection was reported in a Belgian sports mare in Belgrade, Serbia. Typical symptoms, such as hypersensitive skin reaction, disorientation, weakness, ataxia and the loss of equilibrium were reported. Detection of WNV IgM antibodies by commercial ELISA in the serum samp...

Studies conducted during the past few years have confirmed active West Nile virus (WNV) circulation in Serbia. Based on these studies and the epidemiological situation, the Veterinary Directorate of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection launched national WNV surveillance programmes in 2014 and 2015. The programmes encompassed the...

Cumulative results of WNV surveillance program in Serbia during 2014, and comparison to the human WNV positive cases reported to the ECDC in 2014. (PDF)

Cumulative results of WNV surveillance program in Serbia during 2015, and comparison to the human WNV positive cases reported to the ECDC in 2015. (PDF)

Description of the sampling locations: Districts names, geographic coordinates and web links. (PDF)

Mycoplasma synoviae is known to cause respiratory disorders, syno-vitis, subclinical infections, air sacculitis and eggshell apex abnormalities in domestic poultry worldwide. Th e aim of this study was to determine M. synoviae seroprevalence in 5 diff erent broiler breeder farms in South Bačka from 2014 to 2017. A total of 1511 samples were tested...

Background Equine arteritis virus (EAV) is responsible for infections in equids. It can spread easily within the horse population and has a major impact on the horse breeding industry. No EAV outbreak has ever been reported in Serbia. To determine whether EAV is nonetheless circulating there, especially in the Vojvodina region, 340 horse serum samp...

The lumpy skin disease virus (LSDV) isolate SERBIA/Bujanovac/2016 consists of 150,661 nucleotides and has a 99.95% nucleotide identity with the Neethling Warmbaths LW strain isolated in South Africa in 1999. This is the first complete LSDV genome determined in Serbia and also in the Balkan area.

During 2015/2016, fecal and intestinal samples from live diseased and/or dead pigs with suspected PEDV and/or TGEV and signs of rotavirus infection were collected from in total seven different farrow-to-finish swine farms located in Northern Serbia region (Vojvodina Province). A total of 14 samples (2 pools per farm) of small intestine with fecal c...

Plesiomonas shigelloides, a Gram-negative bacterium and the causative agent of intestinal diseases and extraintestinal infections in humans and animals, is most frequently found in aquatic environments in tropical or subtropical areas. The present study was designed to establish the prevalence and genetic variability of P. shigelloides in surface w...

This study condenses data acquired during investigations of the virological quality of irrigation water used in production of fresh produce. One hundred and eight samples of irrigation water were collected from five berry fruit farms in Finland (1), the Czech Republic (1), Serbia (2), and Poland (1), and sixty-one samples were collected from three...

Efforts to detect West Nile virus (WNV) in the Vojvodina province, northern Serbia, commenced with human and mosquito surveillance in 2005, followed by horse (2009) and wild bird (2012) surveillance. The knowledge obtained regarding WNV circulation, combined with the need for timely detection of virus activity and risk assessment resulted in the im...

Infectious bovine rhinotracheitis/infectious pustular vulvovaginitis (IBR/IPV) are diseases that affect cattle population of all breeds, categories and age. Both diseases, especially infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR), poses severe health threat and causes major economic losses and is considered one of the “most costly” disease in cattle indus...

The results on serological testing of blood sera from stallions and mares used for breeding and the presence of the viral genome of Equine Arteritis Virus (EAV) in stallion semen are presented. The blood and semen samples were taken from a horse stable on the territory of the Republic of Serbia during 2012, 2013 and 2014. Detection of anti-EAV spec...

Rabies is one of the oldest known zoonotic diseases that has significant impact on public health, but still remains neglected in Serbia. Rabies virus can infect humans and other mammals and causes inflammation of the brain associated with encephalomyelitis and neurological symptoms. In 2010, Veterinary Directorate (national Competent Authority for...

Fresh produce that is contaminated with viruses may lead to infection and viral gastroenteritis or hepatitis when consumed raw. It is thus important to reduce virus numbers on these foods. Prevention of virus contamination in fresh produce production and processing may be more effective than treatment, as sufficient virus removal or inactivation by...

For the first time in Serbia, a small surveillance study was conducted in order to estimate the presence and frequency of occurrence of selected human [adenoviruses (HAdV), noroviruses, (NoV GI, NoV GII) and hepatitis A virus (HAV)], animal [porcine adenovirus (PAdV) and bovine polyomavirus (BPyV)] and zoonotic [hepatitis E virus (HEV)] viruses in...

West Nile virus (WNV) is maintained in nature in an enzootic transmission cycle between birds and mosquitoes, but it also infects many other vertebrates, including humans and horses, in which it can induce severe neurological diseases; however, data about virus circulation in other mammals is scarce. WNV has a history of recent outbreaks in Europe,...

West Nile virus (WNV) is a neurovirulent mosquito-borne Flavivirus with zoonotic potential. Virus is maintained in nature in an enzootic transmission cycle between avian hosts and mosquito vectors, but occasionally infects other vertebrates. The infection in horses and humans can be asymptomatic or it can have different clinical manifestations rang...

Tests have shown that adipose tissue is very important in the production of chemical substances that have a major impact on atherosclerosis. The basic fat cells adiposity is very active in bio secretion hormones and other substances. Adiposities secrete chemical substances such as leptin, resistin, adiponectin, and others who participate in metabol...

Introduction: The study of importance of left ventricular contractile reserve presence and changes plasma brain natriuretic peptide levels (BNP) during exercise in patinets with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy is very popular today, but these two parametres have rarely been interconnected. The study of response BNP during echocardiography stress...

The most important adipocytokines affecting the formation and the regression of atheromas plaque in the coronary blood vessels are adiponectin and resistin. The essence of this test is to determine the correlation of the leading biochemical parameters of atherosclerosis, adiponectin and resistin and determine their interdependence with other bioche...

The titer of specific antibodies against equine herpesvirus-1 in blood serum was tested in two groups of mares and their foals. The first group consisted of 12 mares, Standardbred and Serbian Trotter breed, who were vaccinated against equine herpesvirus-1 and 4 in the 5th, 7th and 9th month of pregnancy. On the contrary, 12 mares from the second gr...

Introduction: Intima-media thickness (IMT) of the carotid artery is a widely accepted parameter for detection and quantification of atherosclerosis. The aim of the study was the evaluation of the impact of changes of IMT on the mortality of patients on hemodialysis. Methods: The study was organized as a prospective and observational one. Intima-...

The objective of our work was to investigate some biological characteristics of purified glycoprotein subunits of Newcastle disease virus strain PHY-LMV.42 isolated from pigeons for the purpose of vaccine production. PHY-LMV.42 strain of Newcastle disease virus was multiplied by successive passages in embryonated eggs and identified by the methods...

Introduction: Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection is rarely reported in industrialized countries, but recent studies have revealed quite variable seroprevalence rates among European populations, including blood donors. In Serbia, very limited data about HEV seroprevalence are available. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of anti-HEV IgG ant...

To establish the presence of West Nile virus (WNV) infection in the animal population in Serbia after the human WNV outbreak, the presence of anti-WNV IgG antibodies was examined by commercial ELISA of blood sera samples of 130 horses collected in 2012 from 6 stables and 1 settlement in Vojvodina Province, northern Serbia. During the blood sampling...

The West Nile virus is an arthropod borne or ARBO virus from the Flaviviridae family, which is maintained in nature in the transmission cycle between hosting birds and ornithophilic mosquito vectors. The virus is capable of infecting different vertebrate species and 60 mosquito species. The infection in humans can be asymptomatic or it can have dif...

Common carp is the most important freshwater fish in aquaculture in Republic of Serbia. Excess fat deposition in the meat and abdominal cavity of farmed carp can affect carp flesh quality, dressing percentage and consequently restrict the further development of aquaculture production. The reasons for lipid deposition in carp flesh and around viscer...

One of possibilities to estimate size of myocardial injury during the acute myocardial infarction are electrocardiographic changes, forming of QS formation (ECG signs of scares changes). This investigation which included three groups of patients receiving thrombolytic, nitrates or beta blockers in acute phase of myocardial infarction has aim to ana...

This paper presents a 73-year old woman who was hospitalized in the Intensive care unit because of shortness of breath and atypical chest discomfort two hours ago. Blood pressure on admission was very high (240/130 mmHg), cardiac troponin I was above the reference value (2,1 ng/ml) and initial ECG recording was suggestibile for myocardial infarctio...

Preserved left ventricular contractile reserve means the ability of poorly contractile myocardial segments to improve their contractility under the influence of different inotropic stimulus. To determine the differences in the clinical features of patients with dilated cardiomyopathy, depending on the preserved left ventricular contractile reserve....

Damaged glucose tolerance, prediabetes is a step ahead of the development and the development of diabetes type 2 can occur up to 10 years before overt forms of diabetes, and it's more common in the younger population. Finish line is to point to physical activity as an important risk factor for pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes. Trated 80 patients in...

Pulmonary embolism (PE) and venous thromboembolism are two clinical manifestations of a single entity - venous thromboembolism. PE usually occurs through due thrombi from the lower veins, and in 10-15% of cases are due thrombus from upper veins or right heart failure. Significance is mainly determined by the frequency (1/1000 per year in the adult...

Serological and virological examination of the presence of human and animal infection caused by West Nile Virus (WNV) as well as the presence of the virus in vectors, which has been conducted during the past few years, confi rmed an active virus circulation in the territory of the Republic of Serbia. Based on the obtained results and anticipated in...

West Nile virus (WNV), a neurovirulent mosquito-transmissible zoonotic virus, has caused recent outbreaks in Europe, including Serbia from August until October 2012. Although humans can be infected, birds are the main natural WNV reservoir. To assess WNV circulation in northern Serbia, 133 wild birds were investigated. These comprised resident and...

This article presents the results of an investigation of equine viral arteritis conducted at six horse stables in the territory of Vojvodina. The research encompassed analysis of clinical manifestation of the disease, seroprevalence and virus detection in native semen samples. Analysis of clinical manifestations of the disease was performed accordi...

Bovine herpesvirus 1 (BHV-1) is one of the most siginificant causes of infections of the respiratory tract of cattle and immunoprophylaxis has a key role in curbing this infection. The intensity of the immune response against BHV-1 following immunization using inactivated commercial vaccines varies depending on the type of vaccine, but it is genera...

Numerous outbreaks have been attributed to the consumption of raw or minimally processed leafy green vegetables contaminated with enteric viral pathogens. The aim of the present study was an integrated virological monitoring of the salad vegetables supply chain in Europe, from production, processing and point-of-sale. Samples were collected and ana...

Recent variants of porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) were obtained from tissues of domestic pigs with porcine circovirus associated disease and from randomly selected wild boar samples from Serbia and Slovenia. A 450-base-pair nucleotide sequence was obtained by PCR from the ORF2. The derived nucleotide and amino acid sequences were aligned and comp...

Five strains of Newcastle disease virus (NDV) were obtained from poultry in Vojvodina, Serbia during the outbreaks in 2006 and 2007. These isolates were confirmed and genotypically characterized by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) with primer specific to the viral fusion (F) protein (572bp), and by sequencing of partial F ge...

The qualitative performance characteristics of a qPCR-based method to detect human adenoviruses in raspberries were determined through a collaborative trial involving 11 European laboratories. The method incorpo-rated a sample process control (murine norovirus) and an internal amplification control. Trial sensitivity or correct identification of 25...

West Nile virus (WNV), the most widely distributed flavivirus worldwide, has lately reemerged in Europe, causing worrisome outbreaks in humans and horses. Serological analysis by enzyme-linked immunoassay and plaque reduction neutralization test showed for the first time in Serbia that 12% of 349 horses presented specific neutralizing WNV antibodie...

Lyme disease is a tick borne zoonotic infection, caused by Borrelia burgdorferi s.l. bacteria. For the transmission of the disease, the presence of ticks is a prerequisite. Lyme borreliosis mostly occurs in people and dogs, but it may occur in other animals. Ticks which carry B. burgdorferi s.l. in Serbia are of the Ixodes ricinus specis. In Serbia...

Background: Obesity and depression are significant characteristics of people living in a state of chronic stress. Purpose: Our aim was to determine the characteristics of depression in obese people living in an insecure unstable environment. Materials and methods: The case-control study was organized in two rural environments in Kosovo and Met...

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) genotype 3 infections in pigs and humans have been lately reported in Europe. In the present study, the prevalence of anti-HEV IgG antibodies in swine was investigated, for the first time, in Serbia by means of an ELISA based on a recombinant open reading frame 2 protein of HEV genotype 3. A total of 315 serum samples from 3...

Bovine Respiratory Syndrome (BRS) is a multifactorial disease caused by the interaction of infective agents, the environment and the individual immunological response of animals in the herd. Despite five decades of research on BRS, no clear understanding of how environmental factors influence pathogenic outcomes of the disease has been defined. As...

The paper presents the results of investigations of the presence of the bovine herpesvirus-1 (BHV-1) in samples of blood serum from 106 cows and 107 of their calves (one cow had twins). Blood was sampled from the cows immediately after parturition, and from the calves before feeding on colostrum. The examined cows and their calves originated from 5...

Some Staphylococcus aureus strains, identified as causative agents of mastitis in cattle, exhibit the ability of producing a viscous extracellular polysaccharide layer (slime), which is nowadays considered to be a virulence factor, as it promotes bacterial adhesion onto the mammary epithelial cells and protects bacteria from opsonization and phagoc...

Respiratory diseases of cattle are considered to be the most frequent causes of health problems in now days cattle industry. Among all respiratory diseases the Bovine Respiratory Disease Complex – BRDC is the most significant. BRDC is manifested with severe inflammation of respiratory tract and lungs. The disease is caused by viruses, bacteria and...

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome is a pervasive disease that often seriously affects the health status of the animals and may lead to severe economic losses. Substantial efforts have been made to promptly diagnose this disease, and this paper presents an overview of clinical and laboratory investigation of PRRS in all animal categories...

Parvoviral infection of swine is a disease which is manifested in reproductive disorders in sows and gilts in the form of anestria, premature births, miscarriages, mummified fetuses, the birth of poorly vital piglets and/or a reduced number of piglets in the litter. The infection is present in farms with intensive breeding conditions in the form of...

Classical swine fever (CSF) is a highly contagious viral disease of domestic pigs and wild boars with severe consequences on animal welfare, livestock production, trade and national economy. We investigated if colostral antibodies in piglets, originating from sows vaccinated with Chine strain (C-strain) and challenged with CSF virus, affected the d...

The success of supervizing an infectious disease depends on the ability for speedy detection and characterization of the cause and the forming of a corresponding system for examining the success of control implemented in order to prevent a recurrence of the disease. Since influenza viruses continue to circle, causing significant morbidity and morta...

The pathomorphological changes established following infection with the virus of classical swine plague in non-immune individuals are well known. However, piglets present a problem from the clinical-pathological aspect, in which this virus can be multiplied in spite of established colostral antibodies, but without the exhibiting of the clinical sym...

Aujeszky’s disease (Morbus Aujeszky) is an acute viral contagious disease occurring in a large number of domestic and wild animals. This epizootiological disease has been present in our country for quite some time now, and it has been increasingly frequently diagnosed in carnivora in the recent years. The objective of the investigations was to dete...

The bovine viral diarrhea (BVD) virus is a significant health-economic pathogen in cattle which can be excreted and spread also through sperm of persistently or acutely infected bulls. Native sperm of 6 bulls, found to be negative to the BVD virus by isolating the virus and using the RT-PCR method, was experimentally infected with a tenfold dilutio...

It is possible to conduct an analysis of the incidence of viral diseases in calves if these diseases are divided into two basic groups. One group comprises diseases of respiratory organs which are manifested by symptoms of a respiratory syndrome, and the second group comprises diseases of digestive tract organs in the form of a gastrointestinal syn...

In this paper, the antibody titre to Salmonella enteritidis (SE) was examined by the ELISA method in two flocks of laying hens, where during routine bacteriological investigations Salmonellae was never isolated, and in one flock where Colysepticemia was diagnosed and Salmonella isolated accidentally. In the flocks were Salmonellae were not isolated...

The results of an investigation on bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) in fetal calf serum (FCS), whole blood and pathological material obtained from sick or dead cattle in Serbia are presented. Whole blood and FCS from sick animals were screened for BVDV antigen (Erns) by ELISA. ELISA positive samples and pathological material from dead animals we...

The ELISA technique is one of the most commonly used laboratory-diagnostical methods for diagnosing many infective diseases in humans and animals today. Due to its high specificity and sensitivity this technique is considered a method of choice in diagnosing many viral diseases. The phases and components of the ELISA technique are constantly improv...

At the beginning of etiopathogenic research on chicken anaemia virus (CAV) it was thought that groups of chickens at risk for CAV infection were those coming from a parental flock infected before laying. Therefore it is important to know the level and persistence of transfered maternal antibodies (MaAt) and to measure specific antibody development...

Advantages and deficiency of different types of viral vaccines currently in use or in development in veterinary medicine are described. We emphasize the role of adjuvants in inactivated and genetically engineered vaccines as well as the role of marker vaccines in detection of infected animals in the herd and eradication of certain viral diseases.

In this experiment, twelve pigs were infected by intramuscular inoculation of virulent virus strains of classical swine fever (Baker, Kansas, BAI autochthonic isolate). Three animals survived infection without any clinical symptoms and were sacrificed 60 days post infection (p.i). Nine animals developed an acute form of classical swine fever and di...

The protective value of maternally derived antibodies in broiler breeders and broilers was tested after challenge with very virulent infectious bursal disease virus. Chickens were infected on the 14 th and 10 th day of age respectively. According to the pathohistological lesions in the bursa of Fabricius protection was poor, namely 21.4% in both ex...

The humoral immunological response in 26 highly pregnant cows vaccinated with anti bovine herpesvirus-1 (BHV-1) vaccine ("Borinak", Mevak, Nitra, Slovak Republic) was investigated using the method of virus microneutralization. Titers of specific antibodies for BHV-1 were determined in blood and colostral serum prior to vaccination and revaccination...

The aim of this investigation was to estimate the possible influence of bovine seminal plasma (BSP) on the replication in vitro of some sexually transmitted viruses: BHV - 1 (bovine herpes virus - 1) and BVD (bovine viral diarrhea) significant for bovine reproduction. In addition, we tested the influence of the on EHV-1 (equine herpes virus - 1) an...

The indirect immunoperoxidase method (IP) with polyclonal antibodies was used for detecting infectious bursal disease (IBD) virus antigen in the bursa of chickens experimentally infected with a highly virulent vi,vs designated as KA. Detection of IBD virus by the IP method on methanol fixed paraffin embedded tissue samples is possible ten days afte...