The objective of this study was to determinate the seroprevalence of caseous lymphadenitis (CL) in commercial sheep herds in the Federal District, Brazil. One thousand and twenty-eight serum samples were collected, between March and June 2004, from all the properties (32) with at least 20 adult females in the flock. The seroprevalence of caseous lymphadenitis was determined by ELISA with secreted proteins of Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis. The real prevalence value for the animals was 44.0% (CI 95: 41.0; 47.0), and 50.0% of the 32 herds had at least one animal seropositive for CL. Therefore, these data show that CL is fairly widespread in commercial flocks of sheep in the Federal District.
Sheep; caseous lymphadenitis; prevalence; Federal District