Study of contagious ecthyma in lambs of Basrah Province, Iraq

Abstract EN

Contagious ecthyma have been detected and diagnosed in local lamb breeds 3-6 months old of both sexes.

The study was conducted to examine 941 local lamb breeds in Basrah, province, Iraq represents eleven (11) flock groups.

One hundred (100) local lamb breeds shows different clinical manifestations belong to contagious ecthyma.

Twenty five (25) clinically healthy local lamb breeds considered as controls.

Diseased lambs show different clinical manifestations such as Anorexia, depression and dullness, Unable to sucking or graze, However, Orf lesions was seen in the form of papules, pustules, vesicles, and scwhich indicated in all diseased animals, Moreover, Orf lesions distributed around mouth commeasure and muzzle, Furthermore, lesions was detected at upper and lower part of the lips, additional, Orf lesions was seen on upper and / or lower eyelids.

Fissuring lesions were also detected.

Moreover, a slight, lesions were also detected on coronets, ears, anus, and vulva in (6%) of diseased animals.

Data concerning clinical examinations of diseased lambs show a significant increase in body temperature, respiratory and heart rate of diseased lambs than in controls.

The results of hematological examinations of diseased lambs infected with Orf and controls indicated leuckocytosis due to lymphocytosis, Moreover, the rate of erythrocyte sedimentation of red blood cells indicated a significant increase in diseased lambs than in controls.

On the other hands, The results of the acute phase response also indicated a significant increase in both Haptoglobin values and Fibrinogen time in diseased lambs compared with controls.

The results of PCR on gel electrophoresis show that the ORFV virus has 147 base-pair specific PCR amplicons were detected, In addition, Sequence analysis of submitted Orf virus amplified GFR gene.

The raw nucleotide sequences of all samples were processed by FinchT.

V 1-4 version software for trimming the unwanted sequences and bases with low sequence quality (lower than 20% signal intensity).

Furthermore, The evolutionary history was inferred using the Neighbor-Joining method, Since, The optimal tree with the sum of branch length = 0.

02625234 is shown.

(above the branches).

The evolutionary distances were computed using the Maximum Composite Likelihood method and are in the units of the number of base substitutions per site.

The analysis involved 12 nucleotide sequences.

Codon positions included were 1st+2nd+3rd+Noncoding.

All ambiguous positions were removed for each sequence pair.

There were a total of 79 positions in the final data set.

Evolutionary analyses were conducted in MEGA7.

Results of the histopathological examinations show papillomatus hyperplasia of epidermis as well as a numerous immature hair follicles in the proliferation epidermis and proliferation of sebaceous glands, However, an area of apoptosis of structural molecules were also detected, Furthermore, Masses of areas of proliferative sweat glands with large areas of laminated vacuolated structure and deposit tissue like structures in the dermis was determined, However a dark stained blackish deposit hair follicles with some dilated hair follicles and inflammatory cells were also observed, Moreover, scab like formation above the epidermal cells in the upper epidermal layer was seen microscopically.

It have been concluded that contagious ecthyma seems to be an endemic viral disease at Basrah providence, Iraq, reflect high morbidity rate which might resulted in a recoded economic losses.

However, Secondary bacterial infection or myiasis of affected parts were always follow resulting in more disease complications, Therefore programmed annual vaccination is advised.