DETECTION OF VARIANT STRAINS OF INFECTIOUS BURSAL DISEASE VIRUS IN BROILER
FLOCKS IN SAUDI ARABIA USING ANTIGEN CAPTURE ENZYME-LINKED IMMUNOSORBENT ASSAY
A. N. ALKHALAF
College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Qassim University, P.O. Box
1482, Buraydah, 81999, Al-Qassim,
Saudi Arabia
Abstract
Infectious bursal disease conditions
were observed in 15 commercial and 9 backyard broiler flocks in central area of
Saudi Arabia
during 2007-2008. The age of birds ranged from
2
to 8 weeks. The size of commercial flocks ranged from 5000 to 15000 birds and
these flocks were vaccinated with classical strain of infectious bursal disease(IBD) vaccine at 14 days of age through drinking water. Number of birds in
backyard flocks ranged from 200 to 300 and
the vaccination programme of these birds was not known. High mortalities,
respiratory symptoms, stunting and enlargement of bursa were seen in diseased
birds of commercial flocks. Infectious bursal disease was suspected based on
these clinical symptoms and postmortem findings, although these birds had been
vaccinated against IBD virus. In order to confirm our diagnosis and to identify
the causative agent, antigen capture-enzyme linked immunosorbent assay
(AC-ELISA) was carried out on 142 bursal samples collected from diseased birds
using kits containing monoclonal antibodies against variant strains of IBDV and
61.23% samples were found positive. It was observed that traditional vaccinal
strains (54.02%) were significantly higher than less pathogenic strains
not used in vaccine preparation (29.89%)
and non traditional highly pathogenic strains of IBDV (16.09%).It was concluded that new variant strains of IBDV were detected in the
samples in
Saudi Arabiaand
to our knowledgethis is the first
reportabout the existence of these virus strains in commercial and backyard
broiler flocks in this country.