Prevalence and distribution of peste des petits ruminants virus infection in small ruminants

Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is an acute febrile viral disease of small ruminants characterized by mucopurulent nasal and ocular discharges, necrotizing stomatitis, enteritis and pneumonia. The disease is endemic in Pakistan causing heavy economic losses due to high rate of mortality and morbidity. The present study was conducted in view of determining the disease situation in different geographical regions, seasons, age, sex groups and species of small ruminants. A total of 933 serum samples were collected from the southern, northern, western, eastern and central parts of the Punjab province. Samples were collected from the animals suffering from diarrhoea and showing severe respiratory signs. Serum samples were used for the detection of antibodies against PPR virus (PPRV) by applying competitive enzyme linked immuno-sorbent assay. Based on the screening of the 933 sera samples, the antibody prevalence of PPRV in small ruminants in Punjab was 51.34% (P < 0.432). The frequency of antibodies against PPR recorded was 67.65, 71.11 and 60.23% in the months of December, January and February and 50.67 and 53.0% in the months of September and October, respectively. The higher numbers of positive cases were observed in southern and western districts of Punjab province, compared to other parts of the province. A greater proportion of the sheep (56.80%) versus the goat (48.24%) population was found to be infected with PPRV (P < 0.011). The distribution and prevalence of antibodies to PPRV among various age groups of animals indicated that the higher prevalence (72.86%) occurred at >2 years compared with the other age groups. It was found that PPR has high frequency (59.24%) in females than males (41.18%) of sheep and goat (P < 0.001). These findings may be correlated with variations in the sheep and goat husbandry practices within different geographic regions, the topography of different states and the socio-economic status of individual farmers.