ORIGINAL RESEARCH Comparison of two techniques for diagnosis of cryptosporidiosis in diarrhoeic goat kids and lambs in Cyprus Nektarios D. Giadinis & Symeon Symeoudakis & Elias Papadopoulos & Shawkat Q. Lafi & Harilaos Karatzias Accepted: 10 February 2012 / Published online: 29 February 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012 Abstract This study was conducted in the Larnaca area of Cyprus and included 28 goat and 15 sheep flocks suffering from neonatal diarrhoea (>20%). Faecal samples from diar- rhoeic animals revealed that 25 of the 28 goat and 12 of the 15 sheep flocks were positive for Cryptosporidium. The ELISA was more accurate in the diagnosis of cryptosporid- iosis compared to the Ziehl–Neelsen staining technique (P < 0.05). Flock size and the period of kidding/lambing were found to be the main risk factors implicated in the occur- rence of neonatal goat kid/lamb cryptosporidiosis. Keywords Goat kids . Lambs . Cryptosporidiosis . Cyprus . Diagnosis . Risk factors Introduction Neonatal diarrhoea syndrome is a common problem in sheep and goat flocks (Scott 2007; Smith and Sherman 2009), and cryptosporidiosis has been implicated in several countries in this (Giadinis et al. 2007, 2008; Paraud et al. 2010; Castro-Hermida et al. 2011). Also, cryptosporidial infection many times is a zoonosis (El-Sherbini and Mohammad 2006; Smith et al. 2010; Zintl et al. 2011). The main causative agent of small ruminant cryptosporidi- osis is Cryptosporidium parvum, although other genotypes or species could infect and cause disease in small ruminants (Rochelle et al. 1999; Fayer and Santin 2009; Yang et al. 2009). Cryptosporidiosis can cause diarrhoea in lambs and goat kids 4–15 days old. Initially, affected animals are alert with normal appetite for 5–7 days, but finally, they may die from dehydration and electrolyte imbalance, although sometimes the condition is self-limited (Navarre and Pugh 2002; Wright and Coop 2007; Giadinis et al. 2008). The duration of the disease can be shorter, and death can occur within 2–3 days, when other enteropathogens complicate Cryptosporidium infection (Wright and Coop 2007). Also, cryptosporidiosis can predis- pose to secondary infections (Giadinis et al. 2011). C. parvum has been identified in a limited number of isolates in young and adult small ruminants in Cyprus (Phylactou 2007; Quilez et al. 2008), while Cryptosporidium spp. and C. hominis have been found in human travellers to Cyprus, who became ill (Isaacs et al. 1985; Chalmers et al. 2008). However, to date, no study has been conducted to investigate the role of Cryptosporidium spp. in diarrhoeal syndrome of neonatal small ruminants in Cyprus, a country with subtropical climate. The present study aimed to investigate the role of Cryp- tosporidium spp. in diarrhoeal syndrome of neonatal goat N. D. Giadinis : H. Karatzias Clinic of Farm Animals, School of Veterinary Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece E. Papadopoulos Laboratory of Parasitology and Parasitic Diseases, School of Veterinary Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece S. Symeoudakis Private Veterinarian, Larnaca, Cyprus S. Q. Lafi Department of Pathology and Animal Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Jordan University of Science and Technology, P.O. Box 3030, Irbid, Jordan N. D. Giadinis (*) St. Voutyra 11, 546 27 Thessaloniki, Greece e-mail: ngiadini@vet.auth.gr Trop Anim Health Prod (2012) 44:1561–1565 DOI 10.1007/s11250-012-0106-4