Indian Journal of Virology : An Official Organ of Indian Virological Society

The emergence of Nipah virus (NiV) infection into the pig population and subsequently into the human population is believed to be due to changes in ecological conditions. In Malaysia, A major NiV outbreak occurred in pigs and humans from September 1998 to April 1999 that resulted in infection of 265 and death of 105 persons. About 1.1 million pigs had to be destroyed to control the outbreak. The disease was recorded in the form of a major outbreak in India in 2001 and then a small incidence in 2007, both the outbreaks in West Bengal only in humans without any involvement of pigs...

Bluetongue (BT) is an infectious, arthropod-borne viral disease of domestic and wild ruminants caused by bluetongue virus (BTV), which is a double-stranded segmented RNA virus. Of the 26 confirmed BTV serotypes, 23 were reported in India based on the detection of antibodies or virus. In order to assess the prevalence of different serotypes in Andhra Pradesh, serum samples which were positive for BTV by group-specific antibody ELISA were subjected to type-specific neutralization of BTV serotypes 1, 2, 9, 10, 21 and 23...

In view of the outbreaks of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus in poultry in India, its impact on global public health and growing concerns of avian influenza (AI) viruses, surveys in wet poultry markets were conducted in the states of Maharashtra, West Bengal and Jharkhand in India during the period 2009-2012. During these surveys various types of samples from poultry were collected. During outbreaks and surveys in poultry, tracheal swabs (TS), cloacal swabs (CS), poultry drinking water (PDW) samples and fecal samples (FS) are preferred samples for AI diagnosis...

Equine infectious anemia (EIA) is a retroviral infection of horses. Horses infected by EIA virus (EIAV) become inapparent carriers that remain asymptomatic for the remainder of their life span and serve as infection source to other horses. In this study, agar gel immunodiffusion test and ELISA were used to investigate the presence of antibodies to EIAV in equines. A total of 67,042 equine serum samples from 19 states and two union territories were tested during April 1999 to September 2012. The results revealed that none of the animals were positive for antibodies to EIAV from 1999 to December 2009...

Present study was undertaken to investigate the cause of deaths of peafowls in Haryana State. In total, 145 birds were sick and 28 birds were reported dead during July to September 2012. Some of the sick birds were showing signs of shaking of heads, torticollis and paresis. Blood and cloacal swab samples from sick birds along with brain and intestinal tissues from dead birds were collected for further investigation. Although post-mortem examination showed no typical lesions of Newcastle disease virus (NDV) yet raised HI tires against NDV in some serum samples and clinical signs indicated the presence of NDV...

Peste des petitis ruminants (PPR) is an economically important endemic viral disease of sheep and goats in India, where several different homologous PPR vaccine candidates have been developed. We evaluated the serological response to two vaccine strains, Arasur/87 and Sungri/96, in South Indian cross-bred and native sheep and goats reared under organized and unorganized settings. Animals seronegative (percent inhibition or PI <40) by competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (c-ELISA) were immunized with either of the vaccine strains or placebo...

The non-structural protein 1 (NS1) of avian influenza virus was defined as one of the virulent factors. To understand the effect of NS1 protein of influenza virus H5N1 isolated in Thailand on type I (α/β) interferon (IFN) synthesis, five reverse genetic viruses were constructed and used as models. The viruses were generated using NS genomic segment from A/Peurto Rico/8/1934 (H1N1) and four avian influenza viruses isolated from the first outbreak in Thailand. All the viruses have the rest of the genome from A/Peurto Rico/8/1934 (H1N1)...

Genetic and antigenic analysis of H5N1 viruses, isolated in India during a period from year 2006 to 2010, was carried out for selection of the potential H5-HA (haemagglutinin) gene donor virus for developing a reverse genetics based DIVA marker H5 vaccine for poultry in India. Out of the 47 H5N1 viruses (clade 2.2), 14 representative viruses were selected on the basis of amino acid sequence analysis of HA1 gene for further antigenic characterization. Using antigenic cartography, an antigenic map was constructed based on the data of cross-HI (haemagglutinin inhibition) titration of 14 sera versus 14 viruses to visualize the relatedness among the antigens and antigenic coverage of the sera...

Equine infectious anemia (EIA)-a retroviral disease caused by equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV)-is a chronic, debilitating disease of horses, mules, and donkeys. EIAV infection has been reported worldwide and is recognized as pathogen of significant economic importance to the horse industry. This disease falls under regulatory control program in many countries including India. Control of EIA is based on identification of inapparent carriers by detection of antibodies to EIAV in serologic tests and "Stamping Out" policy...

Several outbreaks of avian influenza (AI) caused by H9N2 subtype, have been reported in the poultry industry during 1990 around the globe. Currently, H9N2 are endemic in the large area of Middle and Far East, including Pakistan. Since H9N2 AI viruses are sporadically reported from humans, extensive incidence of H9N2 in poultry imposes a great risk for human health. In this context, continuous monitoring of the poultry and determining the genetic nature of these viruses are fundamental to predict any future threat...

The bovine immunodeficiency virus (BIV) is a lentivirus which is known to infect cattle worldwide. Though serological and genomic evidence of BIV in cattle has been found throughout the world, isolation of the virus has been reported only from few places. Very little is known about its impact on animal health status, pathogenesis and mode of transmission. BIV is considered generally non-pathogenic and is not known to cause any serious disease in cattle. BIV is genetically and antigenically related to Jembrana disease virus (JDV), the cause of an acute disease in Bali cattle (Bos javanicus) and human immunodeficiency virus, the cause of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome in human...

Malignant catarrhal fever (MCF) is a fatal lymphoproliferative disease affecting bovids, cervids and other ruminant species caused by viruses belonging to subfamily Gammaherpesvirinae, genus Macavirus. Among the 10 MCF viruses known to cause the disease, alcelaphine herpesvirus 1 (AlHV-1) and ovine herpesvirus 2 (OvHV-2) are the two most widely prevalent causative organisms. The AlHV-1 naturally infects wildebeest and causes wildebeest associated MCF (WA-MCF) in cattle in regions of African sub-continent. The OvHV-2 is prevalent in all varieties of domestic sheep as a sub-clinical infection and causes sheep associated MCF (SA-MCF) in susceptible ruminants in most regions of the world...

The peptide dendrimer provides novel strategies for various biological applications. Assembling of peptide in macromolecular structure is expected to give rational models as drugs, their delivery and diagnostic reagents. Improved understanding of virus structure and their molecular interactions with ligands have paved the way for treatment and control of emerging and re-emerging viral diseases. This review presents a brief account of a synthetic peptide dendrimer used for diagnostic, therapeutic and prophylactic applications...

Viruses have short replication cycles and produce genomic variants within a host, a process that seems to adapt to their specific host and also enable them to infect new hosts. The recent emergence of viral genomic variants from the circulating pool within the host population and re-emergence of the old ones are posing serious threat to agriculture, animal husbandry and humanity as a whole. This review assesses the potential role of genomic and proteomic tools that can monitor not only the course of infection and pathogenesis, but also predict the pandemic or zoonotic epidemic potential of a virus in a previously exposed or immunologically naive biological population...

Camelpox is considered as emerging public health problem during this decade due to increased reported cases and outbreaks in camels. Camelpox is a contagious, often sporadic, and notifiable skin disease of camelids and is socio-economically significant as it incurs considerable loss in terms of morbidity, mortality, loss of weight and reduction in milk yield and confined to camel-rearing countries. The causative agent, camelpox virus (CMLV) is genetically closely related to variola virus and has gained much attention from researchers due to its recent emergence in human...

Emerging and reemerging viral diseases of livestock and human beings are in sharp rise in recent years. Importantly, many of these viruses, including influenza, Hendra, Nipah and corona are of zoonotic importance. Several viral diseases of livestock such as bluetongue, peste des petits ruminants, camel pox, equine infectious anaemia, chicken anaemia and sheep-associated malignant catarrhal fever are crossing their traditional boundaries. Emergence of new serotypes and variant forms of viruses as in the case of blue tongue virus, avian infectious bronchitis virus, Newcastle disease virus adds additional level of complexity...

A field visit in September 2011 to the Cucumis anguira (Gherkin) growing regions of Kuppam, Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, India revealed occurrence of mosaic, blistering and fruit malformation leading to the crop losses. Analysis of field samples revealed association of Zucchini yellow mosaic virus (ZYMV) with the disease. This is the first confirmed report of natural occurrence of ZYMV on Gherkin in India.

During an investigation in the year 2010, on the weed reservoir of begomovirus, Abutilon pictum showing bright yellow mosaic symptoms was observed in Udhagamandalam, Tamil Nadu, India. The complete bipartite genome of a begomovirus was cloned and sequenced which revealed association of Abutilon mosaic virus (AbMV). Nicotiana benthamiana plants inoculated biolistically with the concatemers generated through rolling circle amplification of the cloned DNAs were asymptomatic; however three out of nine plants showed presence of viral DNA A...

Newcastle disease virus (NDV), the causative agent of Newcastle disease (ND) in chicken causes significant economic loss for the poultry industry worldwide. The mechanism involved in host response to NDV infection is not well understood. For better understanding of the virus-host interaction; transcriptional profile of some genes of chicken embryo (CE) cells infected with NDV vaccine strain D58 was established using quantitative RT-PCR SYBR Green method. The relative standard curve method was used to measure the level of transcripts of the cellular genes against an endogenous control (β actin) gene...

Highly pathogenic avian Influenza (HPAI) is an important zoonotic disease and is becoming a great threat to poultry industry. India has experienced continual outbreaks of H5N1 HPAI virus since February, 2006 especially in Eastern India. Survivability in poultry faeces is an important determinant in evaluating the persistence of the virus in the poultry sheds and their vicinity. In this paper, survivability of Indian H5N1 HPAI virus in dry and wet poultry faeces at 42, 37, 24 and 4 °C, respectively is reported...