Isolation, Serotyping and Molecular Detection of Bovine FMD Virus from Outbreak Cases in Aba'ala District of Afar Region

Abstract

Background: Among the top listed economically important transboundary livestock diseases of cattle, foot and mouth disease (FMD) is the leading bottleneck in livestock production and productivity in Ethiopia. On the basis of FMDV active outbreak cases, a cross sectional study was undertaken to collect samples from January, 2019 to March, 2020 intended for isolation, serotyping and molecular detection of FMDV in the study district. Purposive sampling method was applied to select the study area for the reason that the presence of current active FMD outbreak case report during the study period. Totally, 27 FMD suspected clinical samples were collected from clinically affected study population during field outbreak. Out of 27 samples, 18 of them were inoculated on cultured Baby hamster kidney (BHK-21) monolayer cells and all 27 samples were tested using conventional RT-PCR and sets of specific universal primers. Finally, the PCR products were visualized with UV illumination and imaged with gel documentation system. Results: The current study result revealed that out of 18 clinical samples subjected to virus isolation, 72.2%(n=13) of these cultures exhibited FMDV induced cytopathic effect (CPE) and the identified serotype was SAT-2 FMD virus. Out of 27 clinical samples tested by conventional RT-PCR, only 12 FMDV samples were found to be FMDV positive by universal primers. Out of 27 clinical samples detected by conventional reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), only 12 FMDV samples were found to be FMDV positive by universal primers.Conclusions: Our study finding indicated FMDV is prevalent in the study area and FMDV serotype SAT-2 was the causality for the outbreaks of the disease in the study area. Hence, region wise regular FMD outbreaks investigation, further phylogenetic analysis and vaccine matching field isolates should be carried out to know in depth data about FMDV serotypes and topotypes involving in afar region of Ethiopia for effective vaccine development and control of the disease.