No abstract

Duck viral enteritis (DVE) is an important viral disease affects ducks all over the world. Vaccination is an effective way to control DVE, and an attenuated vaccine is used extensively worldwide. In this study, we attempted to control the disease by emergency vaccination. Three out of four groups (group 1, 2 and 3) of 21 days old Muscovy ducklings were infected with 0.5 ml of 10 5.5 duck embryo lethal dose 50 (dELD 50 /ml) of identified field duck enteritis virus (DEV) isolate. After the onset of clinical signs (6 days post infection), two out of three infected groups (group 2 and 3) were vaccinated with live attenuated vaccine using oral and S/C routes, respectively. Birds of infected-non vaccinated group (group1) showed the characteristic clinical and pathological features of the disease at the fifth day post infection that progressed throughout 21 days of the experiment, with 33.3% mortality rate. The severity and frequency of clinical and pathological findings in infected-vaccinated groups (group 2 and 3) were relatively lower than those of group1. Only 13.3% mortality rate was recorded in group 2; moreover no death was detected in group 3. The presence of DEV in the tissues collected from dead and euthanized live ducklings at the end of experiment was confirmed by PCR. Our results showed that the use of commercial live attenuated vaccine via S\C route as an emergency vaccine could ameliorate the clinical and pathological findings of the disease and considered as an effective tool to control DEV infection.