Goat warble fly infestation (GWFI) is a subcutaneous myiasis caused by larvae of Przhevalskiana silenus, an insect belonging to the order Diptera. The diagnosis of GWFI is challenging in the early larval instars (L1 and L2) as they are occult under the skin and hair coat causing prolonged economic loss in form of meat and hide damage. This necessitates early diagnosis for disease control at herd level and its prophylactic management to prevent economic losses. Hypodermins, a class of serine proteases from Hypoderminae subfamily have been used as serodiagnostic antigens for the past four decades for diagnosis of warble fly myiasis. In this study,the immunodominant antigen Hypodermin C (HyC) from P. silenus has been recombinantly expressed in E. coli and immunogenic characterisation of expressed protein was done. The protein shows hallmark residues in conserved cysteine and catalytic triad typical of serine proteases along with similar profile of immunoreactivity towards Hypoderminae infestation. The present study reports an optimised indirect-ELISA based on recombinant HyC derived from P. silenus for early diagnosis of GWFI. The optimised indirect ELISA provides a sensitive and specific immunodiagnostic for mass surveillance of the GWFI with diagnostic specificity and sensitivity of 96% and 100%, respectively and not showing any cross reactivity against other important parasitic and bacterial diseases of goats. This study presents the first report of indirect ELISA based on recombinant Hypodermin C antigen derived from P. silenus for the serosurveillance of goat warble fly disease.

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The present study was conducted from January 2018 to December 2019 to know the prevalence of coccidiosis in backyard poultry in Jammu, Samba and Udhampur districts of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, North India. A total of 600 pooled faecal samples collected from backyard poultry were examined for presence of Eimeria oocysts. Morphometry and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) based amplification of ITS-1 gene was carried to characterize the Eimeria species infecting the backyard poultry of the study area. An overall prevalence of 28.5% Eimeria spp. infection among backyard poultry birds was recorded. Among the seasons, highest prevalence was recorded during rainy season (32%) with significantly (p<0.05) high oocyst excretion (1.77±0.01) and lowest during summer (19.3%) with low oocyst excretion (0.17±0.006). Young birds upto 3 months of age were found to be more susceptible to infection than older birds, with a significantly (p<0.05) high prevalence percentage of 38.02. Morphometry with COCCIMORPH software revealed presence of Eimeria acervulina, Eimeria maxima, Eimeria necatrix, and Eimeria tenella species with prevalence rates of 16.5%, 3.6%, 21.3%, and 27.6%, respectively.The amplified fragments of ITS-1 gene presented different sizes of Eimeria spp. viz. E. acervulina (321bp), E. tenella (278 bp), E. maxima (145 bp) and E. necatrix (383bp). The study concluded that although backyard poultry didn’t show clinical form of coccidiosis but may act as source of potential reservoir.

Goat warble fly infestation (GWFI) is a subcutaneous myiasis caused by larvae of Przhevalskiana silenus, an insect belonging to the order Diptera. The diagnosis of GWFI is challenging in the early larval instars (L1 & L2) as they are occult under the skin and hair coat causing prolonged economic loss in form of meat and hide damage. This necessitates early diagnosis for disease control at herd level and its prophylactic management to prevent economic losses. Hypodermins, a class of serine proteases from Hypoderminae subfamily have been used as serodiagnostic antigens for the past four decades for diagnosis of warble fly myiasis. In this study, immunodominant antigen Hypodermin C (HyC) from P. silenus has been recombinantly expressed in E. coli and immunogenic characterisation of expressed protein was done. The protein shows hallmark residues in conserved cysteine and catalytic triad typical of serine proteases along with similar profile of immunoreactivity towards Hypoderminae infestation. The present study reports an optimised indirect-ELISA based on recombinant HyC derived from P. silenus for early diagnosis of GWFI. The optimised indirect ELISA provides a sensitive and specific immunodiagnostic for mass surveillance of the GWFI with diagnostic specificity and sensitivity of 96% & 100%, respectively and not showing any cross reactivity against other important parasitic and bacterial diseases of goats. This study presents the first report of indirect ELISA based on recombinant Hypodermin C antigen derived from P. silenus for the serosurveillance of goat warble fly disease.