Detection of Peste des Petits Ruminants Virus Antigen in Pneumonic Camel Lungs Slaughtered at Tambul Slaughter House- Central Sudan

Abstract

The present study was conducted between November and December 2018 to investigate peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV) infection among camel populations in Tambul area, Gezira State, Central Sudan. Hundred pneumonic lung tissues were aseptically collected from camels from Tambul slaughter house, Tambul. These samples were collected based on the presence of the pneumonic signs which include congestion of lungs, changes in color and thickness of the tissue. A 20% tissue homogenate was prepared from lung tissues samples. In order to detect PPRV antigen, haemagglutination test was used based on its high simplicity and rapidity in detecting PPRV antigen. In this study, the HA test detected PPRV antigen in camel samples and gave a positive reaction in 17-19 minutes. The virus control used in the study was the live attenuated PPR Nigeria 75/1 vaccine strain. Results revealed that from the total 100 camel lung samples tested, the majority of 98 samples were reacted positive in the HA test, whereas only two samples were reacted negative. Results revealed a higher overall antigenic prevalence of 98%. The HA titres for the positive samples ranged from 4 and 256 haemagglutination units (HAU) with mean titre of 14.4 HAU. Of note, one sample only showed a very high haemagglutination titre of 256 HAU whereas apparently most of the samples achieved HA titre of 8 HAU. Moreover, 9 samples showed HA titre of 4 HAU, 57 samples showed HA titre of 8 HAU, 19 samples showed HA titre of 16 HAU and 12 samples showed HA titre of 32 HAU. The results showed that PPRV is one of the viruses causing pneumonia in camels. Further studies are need to investigate whether camels may transmit the virus to other susceptible animal species, or not, and to determine their role in the epidemiology of the disease in the Sudan.