Mass mortality of Saiga antelopes in Kazakhstan, results of NGS investigation. Mass mortality of Saiga antelopes in Kazakhstan, results of NGS investigation

In 2015 a mass mortality of over 200,000 of saiga antelopes in central Kazakhstan was caused by haemorrhagic septicaemia due to a commensal bacterium, Pasteurella multocida. Previous analyses have provided evidence that environmental triggers, associated with weather conditions and specifically air moisture and temperature in the region of the saiga calving over a ten-day period running up to the event, were critical to the proliferation of latent bacteria and historically similar die-offs in the same areas. This study investigated whether other viral or bacterial agents could be detected in samples collected from affected animals using next generation sequencing (NGS) approaches. Viral agents often associated with commensal bacterial opportunism were excluded and Pasteurella multocida serotype B was confirmed as the main cause of the disease by three independent working groups.