Abstract
Methods & Materials: In this study ticks were sampled from restrainedanimalhosts (livestockandwildlife), classified to species and processed in pools of up to 8 ticks per pool. Virus screening was performed by cell culture using Vero cells and RT-PCR. Positive cases were subjected to 454 sequencing. Phylogenetic analysis was carried out to determine the evolutionary relationships of our isolates. Results: Among other viruses, WNV was isolated from a pool of Rhipicephalus pulchellus. Sequence data is available in gene bank and this forms the focusof this report. Comparative analysiswith27 different WNV strains from other regions revealed that our isolate belongs to lineage 1. Conclusion: Overall, phylogenetic analysis based on nucleotide sequences showed that although genetically distinct, the WNV strain obtained in this study clustered relatively closely to virus isolates fromRussia, Europe and theUnited States belonging to lineage 1 of WNV. To our knowledge, this is the first documented isolation of WNV from Rhipicephalus pulchellus. It is plausible that wild migratory birds may have dispersed these lineages among these continents through tick vectors.
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