Growth of Contagious Pustular Dermatitis Virus in Human Tissue Cultures

Abstract

CONTAGIOUS pustular dermatitis or ‘orf’ is a well-known disease of sheep which occasionally causes lesions, usually on the hands or face of people who work with sheep or their carcases. Such lesions may be difficult to distinguish from those caused by cowpox virus or by certain bacteria and fungi and a simple means of laboratory confirmation would be useful. Human infections may be confirmed by transmitting the virus to sheep and carrying out cross-immunity tests; but this is laborious and seldom used. A complement-fixation test using sheep material as antigen was used by Macdonald1, but is not very sensitive. The virus will not grow in the developing chick embryo—which distinguishes it from cowpox virus—or in any of the smaller laboratory animals.