Salmonella Brandenburg — emergence of a variant strain on a sheep farm in the South Island of New Zealand

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Salmonella Brandenburg was initially diagnosed in New Zealand in an aborted ewe from a Merino flock in mid-Canterbury in 1996. The following year, the disease occurred on farms in midCanterbury and on one farm near Winton in Southland (Bailey 1997). Since then, this bacterium has caused widespread abortion and deaths in pregnant ewes in Southland, coastal Otago and south- and mid-Canterbury. In cattle, the same organism has caused diarrhoea and dysentery in calves and adult cattle, and abortions and deaths in first-calving cows and to a lesser extent in second-calving and older cows (Clark et al, in press). Salmonella Brandenburg has also caused diarrhoea and fetal deaths in dogs, and diarrhoea and deaths in foals.