Virological Diagnoses of Pesti des petitis Ruminants Virus in Sheep in Giza Governorate

Abstract

P ESTE des petits ruminants (PPR) is an intense and extremely contagious disease with high mortality in small ruminants resulting inconsiderable socio-economic impact in developing countries. Our study was established during the routine follow up in El-Giza governorate during 2019. A total number of 45 swabs, 40 sera samples and 15 post-mortem epithelial tissues were collected from sheep showing clinical signs suggestive for PPR.PPRVdetection was investigated using serological, pathological and RT-PCRdiagnosis tests.Serologically, PPRV antigens detection were 86%, 93.3%, 66.63% and 73.3% in the nasal, ocular, faecal swabs and different tissues samples, respectively. While, PPRV antibodies detection were 95% in the collected sera samples.Histopathologically, the lung showed severe bronchiectasis and syncytium formation with high accumulation of inflammatory cells. The liver exhibited necrosis with severe portal and central hypertension filled with inflammatory cells.The kidneys revealed severe atrophied glomeruli with destructed renal glomerular capillaries, hemorrhage in the glomeruli and renal tubules with thrombosis of blood vessels. Spleen revealed proliferation of central arterioles with periarteriolar proliferation of connective tissues and hypercellular red pulp with hemorrhage. The mouth commissures suffering from nodules and ulceration which exhibited microscopically multiple vesicles in the epidermis and dissociation of the epidermal and dermal layers filled with inflammatory cells and eosinophils with syncytium formation. A 448 bp band by RT-PCRwas obtained from all nasal and ocular samples, while 2 lung samples were negative for this test.Therefore, the results proved the presence of the disease in El-Giza governorate.