This review addresses the scientific significance of various herbal formulations of different medicinal plants and their extracts, which have shown promise or been proven effective for the treatment of diseases caused by various viral pathogens, including emerging and re-emerging viruses that infect humans, animals, poultry and fish.

Mycoplasmosis, the diseases caused by mycoplasma, are one of the challenging and continuous threats to small ruminant farming. They cause heavy morbidity (upto 100%), mortality (10-100%) and huge economic loss. Common diseases caused by mycoplasma organisms are contagious caprine pleuropneumonia (mostly in goats), contagious agalactia (both sheep and goats), atypical pneumonia (usually sheep), besides arthritis, mastitis, seminal vesiculitis, ampullitis, epididymitis, orchitis, urethritis, conjunctivitis and meningitis either alone or as classical syndromes. The common mycoplasma includes Mycoplasma mycoides subspecies mycoides, M. mycoides subsp. capri, M. capricolum subsp. capripneumoniae, M. capricolum subsp. capricolum, M. agalactiae, M. bovis and M. conjunctivae etc. Most of the mycoplasmas produce a conglomerate of clinical signs hampering diagnosis. The other main challenge posed by mycoplasma is the difficulty in isolation due to lack of

India possess huge livestock population, which is endangered by different endemic infectious diseases (bacterial, viral, protozoan and parasitic), which collectively causes significant economic losses to the landless poor farming community. Infectious diseases impose economic losses by causing morbidity, mortality, decreased production (milk, meat, wool etc.), decreased feed conversion ratio which results in reduced weight gain, decreased draught power and fertility. Furthermore, economic burden is also due to the cost of treatment, abortion, consequences on internal livestock movement, germplasm and international trade. In addition, some of the diseases are zoonotic and inflicts considerable impact on public health. Uncertain agrarian climate, unpredictable weather, drought, floods, migration of livestock, scarcity of fodders, and unhygienic zoo-sanitary and healthcare practices together resulted in endemicity of diseases ultimately leads to more incidence and prevalence of livestock and poultry diseases throughout the year. Synchronized monitoring and surveillance of disease throughout the country is a fundamental requirement for sustainable livestock production. With fairly developed telecommunication in India, following technologies like interactive voice response system, SMS through mobile/cell phones and toll-free landline phones (voice mail) are required for enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of

Association of Mycoplasma mycoides subspecies capri (Mmc) with natural goat mastitis has been studied earlier largely by detecting the Mmc DNA using molecular methods. However, report on detection of cultivable Mmc isolates from natural goat-mastitis milk is still very rare. In this study, Mmc was isolated from milk samples (n = 171) of goats with or without clinical signs of mastitis. Mmc isolates were further characterized by biochemical and species-specific PCR methods. Intra species strain variation was also studied by 16S amplified rDNA restriction analysis (16S ARDRA). The study recovered a total of 6 Mmc isolates (3.5%). Three types of intraspecies variants among the recovered Mmc isolates were found by 16S ARDRA. The study concluded that Mmc may be an etiological agent of mycoplasmal mastitis in Indian goat herds.

Mycoplasma bovis is one of the important bovine mycoplasma involved in economically important clinical conditions like respiratory diseases, otitis media, and mastitis. The present study was undertaken with the objective of developing a SYBR Green dye-based real-time PCR assay targeting uvrC gene for the diagnosis of M. bovis. The analytical sensitivity and specificity of the assay were evaluated. The test showed 10-fold more sensitivity than conventional PCR and detected down to 100 fg level of DNA. It was found to be specific, as no cross reactivity was shown with other related bacteria and Mycoplasma species. The developed assay was able to detect down to 40 copies of uvrC gene from spiked bovine milk samples. At present, this developed assay may be used as a valuable diagnostic tool for the detection of Mycoplasma bovis.