An Epidemiological Study of Sheep and Goat pox Outbreaks in the Sudan

Sheep and goat pox Outbreaks occurred in different geographic areas of Sudan and most strikingly, were highly species specific. Two outbreaks in Gedarif State in June. 2013 affected no goats and outbreak in Khartoum state in March. 2015 affected no sheep despite communal herding; affected goats were vaccinated with 0240 strain. Clinically, the disease was characterized by fever, depression and eruption of generalized pox lesions. Mortality rate ranged between 5.2 and 6.7% with a mean of 6.1%. Isolation of viruses succeed on Lamb testes cell culture at passage four, the diseases were diagnosed using virus neutralisation test and polymerase chain reaction. Sheeppox and goatpox isolates grew well in lamb testes and Vero cells. In MDBK however, both viruses induced slight CPE that reached 60% in 9 days. On the other hand, both isolates induced no CPE in chick embryo fibroblast cells. Virus isolation attempts failed on chorioallantoic membrane of embryonated chicken eggs

Seroprevalence and Identification of Brucella melitensis Based on a Glycosyltransferase Gene among Ruminants in Rafha, Saudi Arabia

Brucellosis is a zoonotic disease with veterinary, public health, and economic implications. The study aimed to estimate the seroprevalence of Brucella spp. among ruminants in Rafha, Saudi Arabia during January to October 2022 and to identify camel strains based on a glycosyltransferase gene sequence. Sera (n=1012) were collected from non-vaccinated sheep, goats, camels and cattle of different sex, age and breed randomly from the abattoirs to investigate the circulating brucella antibodies using RBPT. One hundred and eighteen sera (9.7%) were reactive for Brucella spp. IgG immunoglobulins, with higher percentages detected in sheep (11.4%), females (13.3%), adults (10.7%), and naieme breed (13.9%). Significant correlation between Brucella spp. antibodies and animal species (0.095), age (0.077) was found, while strong correlation between antibodies and sex was observed. Glycosyltransferase gene was amplified and sequenced from camel reactive sera (n=6). Camel strains displayed multiple nucleotide substitutions and deletions, nucleotide identity among local strains is 96.2-100%. Phylogenetic analysis showed that Brucella spp. strains clustered in two groups, Rafha strains clustered in one group together with other strains. Further investigation is needed to determine the prevalence of the bacteria among farm animals and to identify the strains involved to improve the preventive measures and strategies adopted for control