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Bangladesh first experienced outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) subtype H5N1 in poultry 2007 and by December 2012 a total of five hundred fifty six (556) outbreaks have been reported of which four hundred ninety nine (499) outbreaks occur in commercial poultry farm as against only fifty seven (57) in backyard poultry chicken. The virus appeared to be a deadly pathogen causing a total of six hundred eight (608) human cases with three hundred fifty nine (359) deaths in the world. In Bangladesh seven (7) human cases have been reported with a singular mortality of a child acquiring the infection from household poultry. There had been six epidemic waves of AI outbreaks in Bangladesh since March 2007 and other new waves seem to have started. From the six year’s incidence analysis it was found that higher number of outbreaks occurred in the month of February followed by March. The outbreak started from the middle to late winter and continued up to summer. The phylogenetic analysis of viruses isolated till 2010 revealed only one clade 2.2 virus circulating in Bangladesh. But from 2011 two new clades 2.3.2 and 2.3.4 viruses have been introduced. In 2012, it was observed that Clade 2.2 viruses that was in circulation since 2007 were replaced by 2.3.2.1 viruses. Extensive backyard poultry including a large number of ducks, dense human population, and economic dependence of poor people on poultry with low awareness about risk of infection, live bird trading and poor bio-security were critical factors in the spread of avian influenza infection that posses key challenge in rapid containment. Because of the complex situation in poultry production and marketing system, attempts to control this disease through stamping out and bio-security measures have apparently failed in Bangladesh.Bangladesh J. of Livestock Res. 19(1-2): 44-49, Jan-Dec 2012

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Contagious ecthyma (CE) is one of the most widespread viral diseases; primarily affect goat and sheep but also reported from human, reindeer, musk ox, dog, cat, red squirrel etc. The disease is caused by contagious ecthyma virus (CEV) and he virus is circulating in Bangladesh. Present study was aimed at isolation, identification and molecular characterization of the CEV circulating in Bangladesh. A total of 13 samples (scab materials; 11 from goat and 2 from sheep) were collected from three different farms of Sylhet and Dhaka divisions followed by processing for virus detection by PCR and isolation in Vero cell. Four different sets of primers were used targeting four different genes of CEV. Of these samples, 10 (8 from goat and 2 from sheep) were found positive by PCR. From these positive samples three viruses were isolated. Sequencing of different genes of several CEV isolates has been done directly from PCR product using automated DNA sequencer 3010 Genetic Analyzer available at the National Reference Laboratory for Avian Influenza (NRL-AI), Bangladesh. Bangladeshi isolates were found to have 95-99% identity to each other. When compared to viruses from other countries, high homology (92-96%) was observed to viruses from New Zealand and India, and phylogenetically clustered with them. This is the first report of molecular characterization, though partial, of CEV in Bangladesh.