The Hydropericardium Syndrome in Poultry – A Current Scenario

Abstract

Inclusion-body hepatitis hydropericardium syndrome (IBH-HPS) is an important, recently emerged, disease of poultry, particularly of 3- to 6-week-old broiler chicks, characterized by its sudden onset, with high mortality ranging from 20% to 70%, typical hydropericardium and enlarged mottled and friable livers, with intranuclear inclusion bodies in the hepatocytes. The causative agent is a non-enveloped icosahedral fowl adenovirus (FAV) serotype 4, belonging to the Adenovirus genus of the family Adenoviridae, which can be propagated or cultivated in chicken embryo liver and kidney primary cell cultures. The transmission of disease occurs vertically and laterally by the oral-faecal route. The liver of infected birds shows necrotic foci and basophilic intranuclear inclusion bodies in the hepatocytes. The disease can be diagnosed from its gross and histopathological changes in the liver and by various serological tests, such as agar gel immunodiffusion, counterimmunoelectrophoresis, indirect haemagglutination, the fluorescent antibody technique, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and the polymerase chain reaction. The disease has been brought under control by the use of formalin-inactivated vaccines, prepared from infected liver homogenate, and of inactivated cell culture vaccines. The vaccines are effective in the face of natural outbreaks or experimental challenge and significantly reduce the mortality.

Investigation of Hepatitis-Hydropericardium Syndrome Caused by Fowl Adenovirus (FAdV) Infection in Broiler Chicken Flocks in Northern Parts of India

“…There are many serotypes of fowl adenoviruses (FAdV) that infects chicken but some serotype produces a clinical form of disease, while infection with other serotype may not result in overt disease particularly in healthy birds. The inclusion body hepatitis-hydropericardium syndrome (IBH-HPS) associated with FAdV has been reported to occur in broilers as well as layers throughout the world (Balamurugan and Kataria, 2004;Asthana et al, 2013). In the past two decades several disease outbreaks have been recorded from poultry flocks of different stares and regions of India, causing severe economic losses to the poultry owners and the industry (Dahiya et al, 2002;Gowthaman et al, 2012;Sawale et al, 2012;Kataria et al, 2013;Kumar et al, 2013).…”

“…Hepatitis-hydropericardium syndrome is one of the important pathological manifestations most commonly associated with adenoviral infection in birds (Balamurugan and Kataria, 2004;Kataria et al, 2013). Adenoviral infections are frequently reported among birds including domestic poultry and wild species of birds but majority of these viruses do not produce apparent clinical signs as a primary etiological agent.…”

Classification of Fowl Adenovirus Serotypes by Use of High-Resolution Melting-Curve Analysis of the Hexon Gene Region

“…Identification of the serotype(s) involved is very useful for epidemiological tracing and is of critical importance where vaccination is to be used for the control of the disease (3,20). Typing of the virus conventionally requires isolation in cell culture, followed by a virus neutralization assay (16); however, the implementation of this method is lengthy and labor intensive, and cross-reactivity between serotypes can sometimes render results inconclusive.…”

“…Diagnosis of FAdV infections can be made from the observation of gross and histopathological changes in the liver and the use of electron microscopy (3, 11) and various serological tests, such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (3,18,45), agar gel immunodiffusion, counterimmunoelectrophoresis, indirect hemagglutination, immunofluorescence (3), and Southern hybridization (10, 12). Identification of the serotype(s) involved is very useful for epidemiological tracing and is of critical importance where vaccination is to be used for the control of the disease (3, 20).…”

Pyrosequencing analysis for a rapid classification of fowl adenovirus species

“…Various serological tests, such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (Hess, 2000;Balamurugan & Kataria, 2004;Philippe et al, 2007), agar gel immunodiffusion and immunofluorescence (Balamurugan & Kataria, 2004) can be used for antibody detection. However, since serological methods detect only common group-specific antigens, and because of the widespread occurrence of antibodies to avian adenovirus, these techniques are only of minor relevance for their diagnosis.…”