Management of foot and mouth disease in a dairy farm: By ethnoveterinary practice

Gruel feeding remitted in rapid recovery of foot and mouth disease (FMD) affected dairy cows. The gruel was prepared by cooking equal proportion of whole rice, wheat flour and finger millet flour in adequate quantity of water, jaggery (10%) and mineral mixture. Four organized dairy cattle farms, affected with FMD were selected, where animals at first and second dairy farms were fed gruel @ 2 kg/day for 20 days, at the third dairy farm 2 kg/ day/animal for 10 days and in the fourth farm no gruel was given. Wounds were sprayed with 1% KMnO4 solution and then applied with paste of honey (50%, v/v) and finger millet flour. Topical application of honey- finger millet flour paste, remitted in observation of pain relief in cows having tongue lesions and healing of the tongue/mouth wounds in 3 days thereby enabling the cows to resume eating. The per cent drop in milk yield in FMD affected cows in the first, second, third and fourth dairy farms was 85, 67, 45 and 81 respectively, regain by 80– 100 % in the treatment group after 16 to 20 days post infection, while in untreated animals, only 50% milk yield could be achieved at day 30–35 post infection. Therefore, gruel being low cost, locally available and easy to apply at farm level for rapid relief to the affected cows and faster improvement in daily milk yield helps in improving economic status of small, marginal farmers or livestock holders

Profiling of bovine toll like receptors (TLRs) in foot and mouth disease vaccinated cattle

Foot and mouth disease virus (FMDV) elicits acute humoral antibody response in both infected and vaccinated animals. Toll like receptors (TLRs) are type 1 transmembrane proteins expressed in almost all cell types and activate the innate immune system. The current study was performed to evaluate expression profiling of bovine TLRs like TLR 2, TLR 3, TLR 7, TLR 8 and TLR 10, in response to FMD inactivated vaccine using quantitative real-time RT-PCR technique. Blood samples were collected from control, test group 1 and test group 2, at 0, 14th and 21st days post-vaccination (dpv). The mRNA abundance of these target genes was calibrated with a housekeeping gene (18 S) and expressed as fold over expression of the TLRs genes in bovine over the 0th dpv as control. On 0 day, expression of all TLRs did not vary significantly. The expression of TLR2 and TLR3 genes significantly increased in both test group 1 and 2 after 14th day and 21st DPV but expression of other TLRs increase in test groups 1 and 2 did not differ significantly. Expression of TLR2 and TLR3 genes considerably increased in test group 1 and 2 but expression of these genes were more in test group 1 as compared to test group 2. From preliminary findings, if there is inclusion of TLR2 and TLR 3 agonist in vaccine, it may enhance the innate immunity of animals and helps in clearing of virus and may prevent establishment of infection

Monkeypox: Re-Emerging Zoonotic Threat

Monkeypox (MPX) is a relatively unknown and minor resurgent viral zoonotic disease caused by the monkeypox virus (MPXV). The disease can spread from person to person or from animal to person. The disease is most prevalent in the tropical rainforests of West and Central Africa. The first MPXV outbreak was recorded in a monkey during 1958 as a small pox-like disease causing flu-like symptoms, such as chills and fever, as well as a rash, and the first MPXV case in a human was in a 9-month-old child in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 1 September 1970. There were 16,016 laboratory confirmed cases of MPXV infection and five deaths reported in 75 countries/territories/areas across all six WHO Regions as of 22 July 2022. MPXV has a wide host range, including humans, squirrels, mice, rabbits, hamsters, porcupines, non-human primates (orangutans, chimps, sooty mangabeys, cynomolgus monkeys), black-tailed prairie dogs, African brush-tailed porcupines, rats, and shrews. MPXV replicates at the site of inoculation, the respiratory or oropharyngeal mucosa, and spreads to other organs, such as the skin, lungs, and gastrointestinal tract, where clinical signs and symptoms of the disease manifest. Before the rash appears, most patients have prominent lymphadenopathy, which distinguishes human MPX from small pox. This is followed by macules, papules, vesicles, pustules, umbilication, scabbing, and desquamation. Laboratory tools, such as virus isolation, PCR-based assays, haemagglutination inhibition assays, electron microscopy, ELISA, Western blotting, or immunohistochemistry, have been used to confirm diagnoses. Following a confirmatory diagnosis, tecovirimat, an FDA-approved antiviral drug, is currently available to treat severe cases of MPXV infection, along with symptomatic and supportive therapies. Physical and close contact activities, such as sleeping in the same room or on the same bed as the infected person, intimate contact with an infected partner, living in the same house as infected people, and sharing the same cups and plates, must be avoided to prevent the spread of the disease. Vaccination with vaccinia virus against monkeypox is approximately 85% effective and may protect against MPXV infection if administered within 4 days and up to 14 days (without showing any symptoms) after initial contact with a confirmed monkeypox case

Not Available

Not AvailableBovine mastitis is a highly prevalent disease in dairy cattle, and one of the most important diseases affecting the world’s dairy industry; it places a heavy economic burden on milk producers all over the world. Mastitis is inflammation of parenchyma of mammary gland characterized by physical, chemical and usually bacteriological changes in milk and pathological changes in glandular tissues. Mastitis thus has become major area of concern in the field of veterinary clinical practice. Despite the voluminous scientific work and literature published on mastitis, the problem still persist owing to lack of scientific approach in the diagnoses and treatment of bovine mastitis. The situation has been complicated by the continued indiscriminate use of antibiotics, wrong approach of selection of suitable antibiotics after culture and sensitivity test of milk. However it is difficult to judge the clinical efficacy of a drug solely on in vitro test, as there is large variation in response among herds and within herds owing to type of organism involved, degree of udder induration, physico-chemical properties and kinetic behavior of drugs in udder & milk, site of injection and sensitivity of udder pathogens. The in vitro efficacy of an antibiotic against the isolate may not be achieved in vivo since many factors affect the penetration of drug into the udder tissue/site of infection like lipid solubility and tissue protein binding of the drug, pH of milk and inflammatory exudates/ barrier at the site. Thus, following culture and sensitivity test the additional information on factors like presence of fat globules, reticulin, pH of milk sample etc. could prove to be of vital importance in selection of medicines.Not Availabl

Jejunojejunal Intussusception Induced by Lipomatous Polyp of Jejunum

Adult intussusception is rare unlike childhood variety where it is the leading cause of intestinal obstruction. Preoperative diagnosis is often difficult as the symptoms are nonspecific and so high index of suspicion is needed for early diagnosis by appropriate investigations. This is a case of 65-year-old man presented with acute intestinal obstruction whose laparotomy revealed a jejunojejunal intussusception secondary to a lipomatous lesion which was successfully treated with resection and primary anastomosis. When dealing with a case of chronic intermittent intestinal obstruction, intussusception must be kept in mind as one of the differential diagnosis

Effect of Heat Stress and the Recovery Potential of Heterocystous Cyanobacterium, Anabaena iyengarii Bharadwaja 1935

Cyanobacteria, the major photosynthetic organisms, cover a large surface area of this planet. These organisms, being photosynthetic, have the capacity for sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, a significant greenhouse gas that causes global warming. In this work, we have collected, developed pure culture, and identified 25 cyanobacterial species from semi arid agricultural rice fields of western Odisha with the high-temperature environmental setting. The purpose was to screen the cyanobacteria that can survive and grow at high temperatures with high photosynthetic efficiency. Cyanobacteria belong to genera Nostoc, Anabaena, Calothrix, and Hapalosiphon are observed to survive at 45°C. Among the cyanobacterial species, Anabaena iyengarii 17-SKD-2014 was found to exhibit higher growth, protein content, photosynthetic pigments, and photosynthetic O2 evolution at 45°C in comparison to other cyanobacterial isolates. Further, this cyanobacterium was grown at 50°C to analyze the cellular viability, and only up to ninth day incubated culture could recover from high-temperature stress after transferring to 25°C. Even though this indigenous cyanobacterial species failed to survive at 50°C in the laboratory conditions beyond a time limit, but this could be biotechnologically manipulated for effective carbon dioxide sequestration contributing to minimization of global warming

Not Available

Not AvailableBackground RT-qPCR technique is the current world-wide method used for the early detection of SARS-CoV2 RNA in the suspected clinical samples. Viral RNA extraction is the key pre-analytical step for SARS-CoV2 detection which often achieved using commercial RNA-extraction kits. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, bulk production and the supply chains for the commercial RNA-extraction kit have been seriously compromised. The shortage of commercial RNA-extraction kit is even more acute in developing country. Furthermore, use of one-off design RNA-columns can generate plastic wastes that have an environmental pollution effect. Methods and results To address these issues, in this study, we used warm alkaline solution containing Triton X-100 for the complete removal of the residual SARS-CoV2 RNA from the used RNA-binding silica column. Columns regenerated using the alkaline solution have the viral RNA purification capability that is comparable to the fresh silica columns. We also demonstrated that RNA-binding silica columns can be regenerated and reused for a minimum of five-times. Conclusions Therefore, the use of the RNA-column regeneration method may benefits several SARS-CoV2 diagnostic laboratories throughout the world by cutting down the requirement of commercial RNA-purification column.Not Availabl

Differential antibody responses to the major antigenic sites of FMD virus serotype O after primo-vaccination, multiply-vaccination and after natural exposure

Foot and mouth disease (FMD) virus serotype O is the predominant cause of FMD outbreaks in several regions of the world including India. Five independent neutralizing antigenic sites have been identified on the capsid surface of FMD virus serotype O. The relative importance of these neutralizing sites in eliciting antibody responses in the polyclonal sera collected from un-infected vaccinated (both primo and multiply-vaccinated) and naturally infected cattle populations were determined through a combination of reverse genetics and serology. The known critical amino acid residues present on the five antigenic sites of FMD virus serotype O Indian vaccine strain O IND R2/1975 were mutated through site-directed mutagenesis. The mutant viruses were rescued in cell-culture and analyzed through virus-neutralization assays along with parent virus using the polyclonal sera collected from three groups of cattle. In the polyclonal sera from primo-vaccinated cattle, significantly higher level of antibodies were directed towards antigenic site 2. In contrast, in polyclonal sera from multiply vaccinated animals, both antigenic sites 1 and 2 were equally important. In case of naturally infected animals, antibody responses were elicited against all the five antigenic sites. Although a drop in neutralization titres was observed for all the mutants, in one instance, increase in titre was noticed for a site 3 mutant. The findings from this study extend our knowledge on the antibody immunodominace following FMDV vaccination and infection, and may improve our strategies for vaccine strain selection and rational vaccine design

Annual Report 2016-17

Not AvailableGlobally, Foot-and-mouth Disease is the most important transboundary disease of economic importance. The economic losses to the livestock industry attributed to this dreaded disease are large. There are direct and indirect losses due to this menace. The causative FMD virus is antigenically diverse having seven distinct serotypes (O, A, C, Asia1 and Southern African Territories (SAT) 1-3) and multiple subtypes/genotypes in each serotype. Currently three serotypes (O, A and Asia1) are prevalent in India. Serotype O is the most prevalent one followed by serotypes Asia1 and A. A vaccination based FMD control programme was launched by Govt of India in 2004 in selected 54 districts with progressive expansion. Currently, this programme includes 460 districts of the country covering all the states of Southern peninsula (Kerala, Tamilnadu, Puducherry, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh), Maharashtra, Goa, Daman and Diu, Gujarat, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal and Himachal Pradesh

Emergence of foot-and-mouth disease virus serotype Asia1 group IX in India

Not AvailableFoot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) serotype Asia1 is prevalent in India and is responsible for a minor proportion of FMD outbreaks. Globally, serotype Asia1 is grouped into nine different groups (GI-IX) based on genetic analysis. In India, only Asia1/G-III and Asia1/G-VIII have been documented so far. Phylogenetic analysis of recent serotype Asia1 isolates from India revealed the emergence of Asia1/G-IX. The Asia1/G-IX lineage shares recent common ancestry with Asia1/G-VIII dating to 2016. The root state posterior probabilities of Asia1/G-VIII are inclusive and there may have been either an incursion of the virus from Bangladesh, where it was first identified, or in situ evolution of the virus within India, which is an intriguing possibilityNot Availabl