Serological survey of bovine herpesvirus type 1 infection in China

To understand the nationwide seroprevalence of bovine herpesvirus type 1 (BoHV-1) infection of cows in China, 1344 sera of dairy cows from 29 provinces and 765 sera from 6 herds in Hubei province were collected with stratified random sampling. Another 483 sera from imported cows were included. The serum antibody was tested by BoHV-1 gG ELISA. The results demonstrated that the overall nationwide seroprevalence was 35.8% (481/1344), while the prevalence for individual province ranged from 12.1% to 77.8%. Although each province had positive samples, the prevalence was clustered in areas based on the cow population size. In Hubei Province, the overall seroprevalence was 22.2% (170/765) while the prevalence for individual farms varied greatly from 0.0% to 41.5%. The sera from imported cows had a moderate prevalence of 21.7% (105/483).