Bovine Ephemeral Fever in Iran: Diagnosis, Isolation and Molecular Characterization

Bovine ephemeral fever (BEFV) is an arthropod-borne disease of cattle and water buffaloes. BEFV occurs seasonally in tropical, subtropical and temperate regions of Africa, Asia and Australia. It has been known for the past decades in Iran based on clinical signs but lack of an accurate diagnosis has made the real feature of disease obscured. This is the first scientific report on isolation and identification of the agent in which molecular diagnosis of BEFV was also set up with high sensitivity and specificity.

The viral agent was successfully isolated through serial passages in brain of suckling mice and cell culture. In addition, the circulating virus during the autumn 2012 in Iran was molecularly characterized based on partial G gene.

Alignment of 3 virus sequences from different parts of Iran revealed that they are identical suggesting that the circulating viruses were most likely the same in this period. Phylogenetic analysis of the Iranian sequences with 17 sequences in the GenBank from the world showed that it is identical to the virus circulated in Turkey during the same period suggesting that the virus was circulated in a large geographic region.

These results offer primary information about BEFV in Iran. To better understanding the epidemiology of the virus, further studies based on seroepidemiology, molecular epidemiology, entomology and meteorology together with finding the model of animal transportation in the region are necessary.