Abstract:
Peste des petits ruminants (PPR), goat plague, is an infectious, fatal viral disease affecting mainly sheep and goats and some wild small ruminants.
Peste des petitsruminants virus (PPRV), the causative agent of PPR, is classified as a member of the Morbillivirus genus in the Paramyxoviridae family in the Order Mononegavirales.
In the Sudan, sheep and goats are the major known hosts of PPR, however, lately PPR was reported to cause a fatal respiratory syndrome in camels in the Sudan.
Between 2016 and 2017, suspected PPR outbreaks were occurred in different parts of the country. A total of 320 tested sera (258 sheep and 62 goats) were collected from sheep and goats from PPR suspected outbreaks. In 2016, the sera were from Dongola in Northern State (n= 2);Garie in River Nile State (n= 72); KabElgidad inGezira State (n= 64); and Raboob-East Nile inKhartoum State (n= 64). During 2017, the sera were from HajarElasal in River Nile State (n= 104); and ElgadidElthaora in Gezira State (n= 14). None of the animalswas known to have been vaccinated against PPR before or at the time of sampling.
All sera (n = 320) were examined for the presence of PPRV antibodies by competitive ELISA (C-ELISA) using monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) directed against PPRV nucleoprotein. Results revealed an overall sero-prevalence of 80.9% (259/320). On the species basis, sheep sera yielded a highersero-prevalence of 84.5% (218/258)while goat’s sera yielded a lower overall sero-prevalence of 66.1% (41/62).
The highest overall sero-prevalence of PPRV antibodies was demonstrated in River Nile State90.3% (159/176 sera) followed by Gezira State88.5% (69/78 sera), then Khartoum State48.4% (31/64 sera) and finally the lowest incidence was present in Northern State 0.0% (0/2 sera).
The findings indicated that PPR is currently circulating widely in the Sudan and still is a leading cause to a clinical disease and higher fatalities. The continual presence of PPR outbreaks, despite the application of PPRV vaccine, might be due to that the vaccination program is not reaching herds of animals in some areas. Therefore, the effective PPR vaccine is recommended to be used with a plan for covering all parts of the Sudan to prevent the occurrence of the disease outbreaks.
