Large-scale serological survey of bovine ephemeral fever in China

•We first developed the indirect ELISA kit for BEFV detection in the world.•We made first large-scale serological survey of BEFV from 1991 to present in China.•We first examined the occurrence of BEFV in Heilongjiang Province of China.

Bovine ephemeral fever (BEF) is caused by the arthropod-borne bovine ephemeral fever virus (BEFV), which is classified in the family Rhabdoviridae and the genus Ephemerovirus. A debilitating and sometimes fatal viral disease, BEF affects cattle and water buffalo. The epizootiology of BEF among cattle in China has not been fully determined. We examined the seroprevalence of the BEFV among cattle in China between January 2012 and June 2014. Among the 2822 serum samples collected from various cattle breeds in 26 provinces in China, the seropositive rate for the BEFV ranged from 0% to 81% between regions and species. Our findings show that BEFV was prevalent in the all of the regions tested in our study and provide the first reliable reference regarding BEF surveillance in China.