1National Research Centre on Equines, Sirsa Road, Haryana, India.
2Equine Breeding Stud, Hisar-125001, Haryana, India.
Abstracts of the papers presented at the International Conference of Indian Virological Society on “Emerging and Re-emerging viral Diseases of the Tropics and Subtropics” at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India, December 11–14, 2007.
Equine rotavirus (ERV) is one of the major etiological agents associated with diarrhea in human neonates and young one of different animals including foals. To know the prevalence of rotavirus infection among diarrhoeic foals, stools were collected from diarrhoeic foals below two months of age during foaling seasons (March-July) of 2003–2006 from two organized equine farms in northern India. Samples were tested for group A rotavirus by ELISA and RT-PCR. The overall prevalence of ERV in diarrhoeic foals was 35.36% i.e. 58 out of 164 diarrhoeic foals tested were positive for ERV. In three foaling seasons of 2004, 2005 and 2006, ERV prevalence ranged between 36–45%, with no significant year-to-year variation in the prevalence. There was negative correlation (r=-0.84803) between the age of foals and rotavirus infection. The prevalence of ERV was significantly more in diarrhoeic foals (44.23%) below two week of age than those above two week (20%). Virus could be isolated from 30 of the 58 rotavirus-positive stool samples in MA104 cells. RNA-PAGE analysis of the ERV isolates indicated that at least five electrophoretically different rotaviruses are responsible for diarrhoea in equines during this period. VP7 genotyping by RT-PCR of the representative isolates revealed that a significant number of ERVs belong to G10 and G3 serotypes. The findings established for the first time that bovine-like (G10 serotype) rotaviruses are associated with diarrhoea in equine foals.
