Year: 2016 | Month: June | Volume 4 | Issue 1
Phylogenetic Analysis of Viral Protein 2 of Bluetongue Virus
DOI:10.5958/2321-7111.2016.00006.8
Abstract:
Bluetongue is a highly infectious vector born viral disease, and it is a disease of wild and domestic animals (ruminants). Bluetongue is a non-contagious disease of animals and spread by the biting midges (Sperlova. A. and Zendulkova. D. 2011). The name Bluetongue is given by Spreull in 1905 (Spreull,1905). Bluetongue disease is mild in goats and severe in sheep as sheep is the primary host of bluetongue virus. Cattle act as the reservoir of bluetongue virus (Browne, 1971). The Bluetongue virus is first reported by hutcheon in 1881 During the introduction of European sheep breeds in Southern Africa (Hutcheon,1902). Later in 1948 it was reported in North America as a sore muzzle disease (Hardy and Price, 1952).). Spare in 1964 reported outbreak of bluetongue disease in India (Spare, 1964). There are several clinical symptoms of Bluetongue disease have been found in ruminants like fever, viraemia, sore muzzle, facial oedema, hyperaemia and congestion, erosion of mucous membrane, haemorrhages, vascular permeability (OIE, 2014). Symptoms are more severe and easily detectable in sheep and these signs are high fever upto 5-7 days, loss of wool, depression and haemorrhages in the coronary band, difficulty in standing and lameness because of painful hoof, excessive salivation, swollen tongue, swelling in nasal and buccal mucosa, pneumonia and death (Tabachnick et.al., 2009). The Severity of clinical signs of bluetongue disease in sheep influenced by the type and strain of infecting virus (Verwoerd & Erasmus, 2004; OIE, 2014). The bluetongue virus is hypervariable in nature therefore, there are 24 serotypes of bluetongue virus are well recognised with two newly proposed serotypes BTV 25 from Switzerland and BTV 26 from Kuwait. In India 22 serotypes have been reported of Bluetongue virus (Prasad et al., 2009; Kumar, 2009). Bluetongue virus belongs to family Reoviridae and genus Orbivirus (Tabachnick et al., 2009). Blue-tongue has a serious economic impact on dairy and wool industry mainly due to high morbidity, mortality and mandatory trade barrier on the movement of BT infected livestock and germ-plasm. BT is evolving into newer challenges and poses ever increasing the threat to associated environment. An Unnatural host like canines have in the past contracted BT infections. Many species of Culicoides have been reported to spread infections. Recently BT has been categorized as multispecies disease by OIE (2014).
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