Molecular epidemiologic investigation of foot-and-mouth disease in pig population of India

Abstract

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious and globally significant viral disease principally of cloven-hoofed livestock species. The present study describes the results of molecular epidemiologic investigation of FMD in pigs across various states of India between 2008 and 2014. During this period, a total of 37 clinical epithelial samples (vesicle/foot/snout epithelium) of FMD-suspected pigs were tested in a serotype differentiating antigen detection ELISA and samples found negative were further subjected to multiplex reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (mRT-PCR). A total of 29 (78.37%) samples were found positive for serotype O in antigen detection ELISA and 8 ELISA-negative samples were subsequently found positive for serotype O in mRT-PCR. The VP1 region-based phylogenetic analysis demonstrated the involvement of O/ME-SA/Ind2001 lineage in the outbreaks. The pig isolates clustered with the contemporary virus isolates collected from bovine indicating a close genetic relationship and therefore signifying inter-species transmission during the outbreaks.