Sero-Survey of Equine Infectious Anemia in the Sultanate of Oman during 2007-2009

Abstract

Equine infectious anemia (EIA) is a fatal and relapsing infectious disease of equines caused by the lentivirus of Retroviridae family which occurs world-wide. It tends to become an inapparent infection if death does not result from the acute clinical attack. The virus persists in infected animals for life and can be detected by serological tests like enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and agar gel immunodiffusion (AGID) tests. Keeping in view the importance of EIA, a sero-survey and passive surveillance was designed to establish the status of EIA in Oman. For the current study, ELISA was carried out on 331 random horse serum samples collected from all over Oman and 262 serum samples submitted from race horses. Four (0.67%) out of total 593 serum samples were found positive on ELISA. These samples were further tested by agar gel immunodiffusion (AGID) test for the confirmation and were found negative. Based on the analysis of the samples, it can be assumed that the horse population in the Sultanate was free of the disease during the study period (2007-2009).

Keywords

• AGID
• Equine infectious anemia
• ELISA
• Oman
• Sero-survey