Veterinaria Italiana (Jan 2019)

Persistence of Bluetongue virus serotype 1 virulence in sheep blood refrigerated for 10 years

  • Giantonella Puggioni,
  • Davide Pintus,
  • Giorgio Meloni,
  • Angela Maria Rocchigiani,
  • Daniela Manunta,
  • Giovanni Savini,
  • Annalisa Oggiano,
  • Ciriaco Ligios

DOI
https://doi.org/10.12834/VetIt.1344.7401.3
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 54, no. 4

Abstract

Read online

This paper reports that Bluetongue virus serotype 1 (BTV-1) infected blood collected during the 2006 Sardinia (Italy) epidemic from a ewe with clinical disease and stored at ~ 5°C for 10 years, caused Bluetongue (BT)-like clinical disease and death when inoculated into a susceptible Sarda breed ram. Anatomo-histopathological examination and Real-Time Reverse Transcriptase PCR (Real-Time RT-PCR) confirmed the presence of BTV-1 in several tissues proving that the BTV-1 2006 isolate has maintained its infectivity and virulence.