Serological evidence of occurrence of Bluetongue virus in goats of Uttar Pradesh

摘要

The Bluetongue is an arthropod-borne viral disease, which is mainly transmitted in animals through hematophagus Culicoides midges vector. In India, Sapre (1964) first reported the outbreak of Bluetongue (B.T.) in sheep and goats from Maharashtra state. The disease is now endemic in India (Prasad et al., 1992) and is of great economic importance in sheep, however, it causes high morbidity (80 percent) and mortality (50 percent) along with other clinical manifestations like abortion, reduction in milkyield, fleece loss and congenital abnormalities. However, goats appeared to have certain degree of resistance to the infection as compared with sheep (Eisa et al., 1979) therefore, the disease goes sub-clinical (Smith and Sherman 1994) in this species.Other species like cattle may act as carrier and the disease usually goes unapparent and is rarely acute.