Vol. 11, Special Issue 10 (2022)

Author(s):
Baswaraj Nitture, Vijay Kumar, Mallikarjun, Gurunath Pasare, Shivamurthy Vakare and Ambika

Abstract:
A piggery unit housing 105 adult Yorkshire cross animals in Bidar district encountered over 37.14% (39 out of 105) mortality in one week. Thorough disease investigation revealed ailing animals as well as, an ongoing mortality. The clinical signs observed in the affected animals were, high fever, anorexia, depression, constipation followed by diarrohea, purple discoloration of skin and ear pinna. Few ailing animals exhibited nervous signs like circling, tremors, in co-ordination and abnormal gait. Upon post-mortem examination of affected animals predominantly revealed wide spread subcutaneous ecchymosis hemorrhages, enlarged lymph nodes, enlargement and infarctions of spleen, ulcers in colon resembling ‘button like’ were observed. The lung tissue was highly congested and hemorrhagic. Pinpoint hemorrhages over the kidney surface resembled “turkey egg”. The whole blood in EDTA from ailing animals and tissue samples viz., lymph node, spleen, kidney, bladder and large intestine loop collected during the post-mortem were submitted to the SRDDL/IAH&VB laboratory for agent identification and disease confirmation. RNA extraction was carried out from the blood and tissue samples for molecular diagnosis and confirmation of the disease. Polymerase chain reaction was performed with a pair of specific primers targeting conserved region of the classical swine fever virus. PCR results yielded an amplicon size of 421 bp confirming the samples as positive for CSF virus. Based on the confirmatory results, the piggery farmer was advised to take appropriate measures to curtail the disease by culling all ailing pigs, disinfection of farm premises using Vircon-S® and recommended CSF vaccination @ 1ml I/M (IAH&VB, Bengaluru) in apparently healthy animals.