Monoclonal antibody-based competitive ELISA (C-ELISA) has been used for the specific measurement of antibodies to peste des petits ruminants (PPR) viruses in sheep, goats, cattle and buffalo. Serum samples from sheep (n = 232), goats (n = 428), cattle (n = 43), buffalo (n = 89) were tested. The animals had not been vaccinated against rinderpest or PPR. Findings suggested that the sero-positive cases were significantly higher in sheep (51.29%) than in goats (39.02%) (P = 0.002). The overall sero-prevalence of PPRV in small ruminants was 43.33%. The PPR antibodies seroprevalence was 67.42% in buffalo and 41.86% in cattle which was significantly higher in buffalo (P = 0.005). The overall sero-prevalence of PPRV in large ruminants was 59.09%. Cattle and buffalo sera showed a high prevalence of antibody against PPR virus which may explain the difficulty experienced in achieving high post-vaccination immunity levels against rinderpest. Because antibodies against PPR virus are both cross-neutralizing and cross-protective against rinderpest virus, further vaccination in the presence of antibodies against PPR virus may be a waste of national resources. It was also suggested that antibodies to PPR virus could prevent an immune response to the rinderpest vaccine. This paper presents serological evidence for the transmission of PPR virus from sheep and goats to cattle and buffalo and highlights the need to include PPR serology in the sero-monitoring programme to give a better indication of national herd immunity of sheep and goats against PPR.
S evere fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging tickborne disease caused by the SFTS virus (SFTSV; genus Banyangvirus, family Phenuiviridae, order Bunyavirales). The disease is prevalent in East Asia countries. It was first detected in China in 2009 and later in Japan and South Korea (1) and is suspected to be widely spread across other parts of the world (2). The recent identification of SFTSV in Xinjiang, China (3), expanded our awareness of epidemic areas of SFTS and suggested the possibility of SFTSV spreading to bordering countries like Pakistan. However, the presence of SFTSV in Pakistan has been unclear. We investigated the seroprevalence of SFTSV in humans in Pakistan. The Study For this study, we randomly collected human serum samples (n = 1,657) from 4 provinces in Pakistan during 2016-2017 (Figure). All participants were farmers of livestock (sheep, goats, cattle, buffaloes, and camels). We recorded and summarized testing results by sex, age, and geographic location (Table). The collection of human serum samples and subsequent tests were reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committees of
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