The effect of intramuscular injection of spiramycin at therapeutic dose on some blood biochemical and hematological parameters in Assaf sheep

Abstract

Spiramycin is used to treatment of different bacterial and protozoal infection in different animal species including sheep, to the authors’ knowledge there are no studies about effects of spiramycin in sheep blood biochemical and hematological parameters. This study was designated to determine the effects of spiramycin intramuscular treatment at therapeutic dose (64,000 IU/kg) for five days in some blood biochemical and hematological parameters in healthy Assaf sheep (n=8). The results showed that spiramycin treatment caused decrease in calcium and creatinine level (P<0.05) without significant change in albumin, total protein, magnesium, glucose and the adjusted calcium level (P>0.05). After treatment, hematological parameters tend to decrease toward normal references range of red blood cell count, haemoglobin concentration, mean corpuscular hemoglobin, mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration and red blood cell distribution width (P<0.05). No changes were observed in hematocrit, mean corpuscular volume, platelet count and mean platelet volume (P>0.05). All the measured biochemical and hematological parameters were in the normal references range after the treatment. These results suggested that spiramycin given in therapeutic regimen to healthy Assaf sheep caused only minor inconclusive changes in the measured hematological and biochemical profiles; and thus can be used safely in treating susceptible infections in sheep. These results might be accepted as a starting point for future experiments to evaluate the effects spiramycin on the different systems and parameters.