Molecular investigation of foot-and-mouth disease during the 2021 outbreak in Mvomero District, Morogoro.
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Date
2021
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Sokoine University of Agriculture
Abstract
Foot-and-mouth disease is a highly contagious infection of cloven hoofed animals.
The disease is caused by an RNA virus from the genus Aphthovirus in the Picornaviridae
family. Foot and mouth disease virus (FMDV) affect mostly cattle at all stage of age and
cause severe economic loss. In Tanzania FMDV has become endemic despite the efforts
in its control. Outbreaks are still occurring and cause economic losses due to different
reasons including vaccine failure. To avoid this crisis, vaccine matching can be done to
ascertain a proper vaccine candidate that can create immunity in cattle against the
circulating strains. To accomplish this, updated knowledge of the circulating FMDV
strains in the country is required through regular epidemiological surveys and vaccine
matching exercise. The aim of this study was to investigate FMDV serotype(s)
responsible for the recent outbreak that occurred in Mvomero district, Tanzania.
Seventeen (n=17) epithelial tissues were taken from feet and mouth of diseased cattle and
transported aseptically to the Laboratory at Sokoine University of Agriculture for
analysis. Detection, molecular typing and identification were done using One-step reverse
transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) followed by Sanger sequencing and
phylogenetic analysis to establish the relationship to the existing FMDV sequences in
GenBank. The findings indicated the morbidity and detection rates to be 27.5 % and
17.6% respectively. Further analysis revealed that the FMDV strain responsible for the
outbreak was Serotype O, genotype
EA-2 which clustered in the same clades
with the isolates from Uganda (OUGA2009) and Kenya (O/KEN/150/2010) with
accession numbers JN974311.1 and KF1352286.1 respectively. It is recommended that
vaccines formulated using the characterised genotype need to be administered in cattle
from that region. Continuous epidemiological studies and close follow up of the circulating strains is important so that the proper prophylactic doses can be administered
before the outbreak occurs
Description
Dissertation
Keywords
Molecular investigation, Foot-mouth disease, Mvomero District, Morogoro