Medicine and Agriculture, Department of Microbioiogy, Immunology and Veterinary Public Health
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Date
2014-06
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Publisher
AAU
Abstract
ox disease outbreaks occurred in sheep and goats population. Skin lesion samples were
oUected from six different geographical areas with the aim of isolation and molecular
haracterization of the virus responsible for causing pox lesion in heep and goats. The study was
mployed questionnaire, outbreak search, virus isolation, and genotyping methods. The
uestionnaire survey indicated that sheep and goat pox is the most common disease in all study
reas and the disease is more frequent during rainy sea on followed by spring and autumn
easons. Purposive sampling method was used to get samples for laboratory inve tigation. 1\
otal of six pox suspected outbreaks were assessed for virus isolation and genotyping during the
tudy period. Out of 102 sheep examined, 35 sheep (34.3%) developed pox lesions on their skins
here as from 50 goats examined eight goats (16%) were found to be positive for pox. Virus was
isolated from 14 skin samples (n= 16; 14 sheep and 2 goat). The virus developed characteristic
pox virus cytopathic effect of cell syncytia, ballooning, aggregation and detaching of cells on
Vero cell culture. Similarly, the conventional genotyping P R revealed 14 out of 16 tested
samples were positive by developing band of 172 bp (Goal poxvirus) whereas two of them could
not produce any band on gel electrophoresis. The real-time genotyping PCR analysis also
jndicated that 14 samples were properly amplified and genotyped as goat poxvirus only while 2
samples not. Even though the existing knowledge suggested that Capri pox virus is strictly host
pecific, this genotyping assay confirmed that sheep are affected by goat pox virus similar to
goats. Classification of poxvirus based on infected host in small ruminants has been found to be
inconclusive. Thus, genotyping of the isolates should be conducted carefully instead of naming
the virus genotype based on the name of animals from which the samples has been collected.
Hence, further genotyping studies are needed to differentiate sheep pox virus and goat pox virus
with respect to their host specificity in order to select appropriate vaccine candidate and
challenge virus for the control of pox in the small ruminants.
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Keywords
Ethiopia, genotyping, goat, goat poxvirus, sheep, virus isolation