Foot-and-mouth disease in elephants in Kerala state of India during 2013

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious acute vesicular disease of the cloven-hoofed animals including cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats, pigs along with more than 70 wildlife species. During the year 2013, FMD outbreaks were recorded in the southern peninsular India comprising the states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. Besides domestic livestock, captive elephants in Kerala were also affected by FMD. The suspected FMD outbreak in six elephants occurred in Neendoor of Kottayam district, Guruvayoor and Thrissur of Thrissur district in Kerala during November - December 2013. The first clinical signs recorded in the elephants were loss of appetite and lameness with mild fever. Frank lesions were grossly evident on the tongue, palate and inner mucous membrane of trunk with exudates from nostrils. There was copious salivation often appeared to be drooling. Severe lameness led to recumbency. Erosive lesions were also noticed in foot-slipper. The foot with blisters turned to open sores making the animals difficult to stand and walk. Clinical samples (foot/oral/tongue/trunk/nasal epithelium) from the FMD-suspected elephants were collected in 50% phosphate buffered saline/glycerol medium (pH-7.5). Supernatants of the homogenized clinical samples were used in a serotype differentiating antigen detection ELISA and samples found negative were further subjected to multiplex PCR. All clinical samples were found positive for FMD virus (FMDV) serotype O in antigen detection ELISA and in mPCR. The VP1 region based phylogenetic analysis indicated the involvement of O/Middle East-South Asia/Ind2001d sub-lineage of FMDV serotype O, which was also responsible for severe disease in domestic livestock in southern states of India during 2013

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Not AvailableThe environment is used as a broad umbrella term for all sources of allergens which may cause allergic hypersensitive reaction of the immune system of humans and animals. Hypersensitivity is the name given to a state in which an immune response damages the body's own tissues. It is a process of reactions of antigen with antibody or sensitised lymphocytes that are harmful to the host. When an adaptive immune response occurs in an exaggerated or inappropriate form causing tissue damage, the term ‘hypersensitivity ’is applied. There are four or five types of hypersensitivity that are often described. Research has focused on understanding each hypersensitivity reaction to ensure appropriate therapeutic recommendations. This article elucidates the details of different types of hypersensitivities and different methods of detection.Not Availabl

Alternate vaccine strain selection in the wake of emerging foot-and-mouth disease virus serotype A antigenic variants in India

Not Available‘National foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) control programme’ is being implemented in India and therefore predicting vaccine match is a key surveillance task. Recently, a considerable proportion of field viruses (75.6%) showed antigenic drift from the existing serotype A vaccine strain A IND 40/2000 necessitating search for an alternate strain. Here, antigenic relationship (‘r1’ value) of 87 field viruses with each of the 8 candidate strains was estimated by virus neutralization test. A IND 27/2011 strain emerged to be the one with the widest spectrum of antigenic coverage showing ‘r1’ value of more than 0.3 with 81.6% of field strains. It achieved a reasonably high titre of log10 7.5 TCID50/ml in BHK-21 suspension cell which was accompanied by positive charge gaining substitutions (E82–K and E131–K in VP2) thought to have adaptive significance. However, potency trial remains to be conducted before A IND 27/2011 finds a place in the vaccine formulation.Not Availabl

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Not AvailableNational foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) control programme’ is being implemented in India and therefore predicting vaccine match is a key surveillance task. Recently, a considerable proportion of field viruses (75.6%) showed antigenic drift from the existing serotype A vaccine strain A IND 40/2000 necessitating search for an alternate strain. Here, antigenic relationship (‘r1’ value) of 87 field viruses with each of the 8 candidate strains was estimated by virus neutralization test. A IND 27/2011 strain emerged to be the one with the widest spectrum of antigenic coverage showing ‘r1’ value of more than 0.3 with 81.6% of field strains. It achieved a reasonably high titre of log10 7.5 TCID50/ml in BHK-21 suspension cell which was accompanied by positive charge gaining substitutions (E82–K and E131–K in VP2) thought to have adaptive significance. However, potency trial remains to be conducted before A IND 27/2011 finds a place in the vaccine formulation.Not Availabl

Influence of K/Mg co-doping in tuning room temperature d0 ferromagnetism, optical and transport properties of ZnO compounds for spintronics applications

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Seroprevalence of Capripoxvirus infection in sheep and goats among different agro-climatic zones of Odisha, India

Aim: The study was undertaken to assess the prevalence of antibodies to Capripoxviruses among small ruminants of Odisha, India. Materials and Methods: A total of 500 random serum samples collected from 214 sheep and 286 goats across 10 agro-climatic zones of Odisha, were screened using whole virus antigen-based indirect ELISA for antibodies against Capripoxviruses. Results were analyzed by suitable statistical methods. Results: Screening of 500 serum samples showed seropositivity of 8.88% and 31.47% in sheep and goats, respectively, for Capripoxviruses. The prevalence rate according to agro-climatic zone ranged from 0% (North Eastern coastal plain zone) to 48.57% (North central plateau zone) for goat pox, and 0% (Western undulating zone and North central plateau) to 22.22% (South Eastern ghat zone) for sheep pox. The difference in prevalence rates among the various agro-climatic zones was statistically significant (p<0.05) for goats, but not for sheep. Antibody prevalence rates among various districts were recorded to be the highest in Jagatsinghpur (30%) for sheep pox and Dhenkanal (80%) for goat pox. Conclusion: The study revealed serological evidence of Capripoxvirus infection in sheep and goat populations in the study area, in the absence of vaccination. Systematic investigation, monitoring, and reporting of outbreaks are necessary to devise control strategies

Estimation of foot-and-mouth disease virus sero-prevalence rates using novel computational approach for the susceptible bovine population in India during the period 2008–2021

Abstract Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a severe contagious viral disease of cloven-hoofed animals. In India, a vaccination-based official FMD control programme was started, which got expanded progressively to cover entire country in 2019. The serological tests are used to determine non-structural protein based sero-prevalence rates for properly implementing and assessing the control programme. Since 2008, reporting of the FMD sero-surveillance was limited to the serum sample-based serological test results without going for population-level estimation due to lack of proper statistical methodology. Thus, we present a computational approach for estimating the sero-prevalence rates at the state and national levels. Based on the reported approach, a web-application ( https://nifmd-bbf.icar.gov.in/FMDSeroSurv ) and an R software package ( https://github.com/sam-dfmd/FMDSeroSurv ) have been developed. The presented computational techniques are applied to the FMD sero-surveillance data during 2008–2021 to get the status of virus circulation in India under a strict vaccination policy. Furthermore, through various structural equation models, we attempt to establish a link between India’s estimated sero-prevalence rate and field FMD outbreaks. Our results indicate that the current sero-prevalence rates are significantly associated with previous field outbreaks up to 2 years. Besides, we observe downward trends in sero-prevalence and outbreaks over the years, specifically after 2013, which indicate the effectiveness of various measures implemented under the FMD control programme. The findings of the study may help researchers and policymakers to track virus infection and identification of potential disease-free zones through vaccination

Complete coding region sequence analyses and antigenic characterization of emerging lineage G-IX of foot- and-mouth disease virus serotype Asia1

Foot-and-mouth disease Virus (FMDV) serotype Asia1 is prevalent in the Indian subcontinent, with only G-III and G-VIII reported in India until 2020. However, in 2019, a novel genetic group within serotype Asia1, designated as G-IX, emerged in Bangladesh, followed by its detection in India in 2020. This report presents analyses of the complete coding region sequences of the G-IX lineage isolates. The length of the open reading frame (ORF) of the two G-IX isolates was 6990 nucleotides without any deletion or insertion. The G-IX isolates showed the highest sequence similarity with an isolate of G-III at the ORF, L, P2, and P3 regions, and with an isolate of G-VIII at the P1 region. Phylogenetic analysis based on the capsid region (P1) supports the hypothesis that G-VIII and G-IX originated from a common ancestor, as speculated earlier. Further, VP1 region-based phylogenetic analyses revealed the re-emergence of G-VIII after a gap of 3 years. One isolate of G-VIII collected during 2023 revealed a codon insertion in the G-H loop of VP1. The vaccine matching studies support the suitability of the currently used Indian vaccine strain IND63/1972 to contain outbreaks due to viruses belonging to G-IX