Camelpox: A brief review on its epidemiology, current status and challenges

Camelpox caused by a Camelpox virus (CMLV) is a very important host specific viral disease of camel. It is highly contagious in nature and causes serious impact on health even mortality of camels and economic losses to the camel owners. It manifests itself either in the local/mild or generalized/severe form. Various outbreaks of different pathogenicity have been reported from camel dwelling areas of the world. CMLV has been characterized in embryonated chicken eggs with the production of characteristic pock lesions and in various cell lines with the capacity to induce giant cells. Being of Poxviridae family, CMLV employs various strategies to impede host immune system and facilitates its own pathogenesis. Both live and attenuated vaccine has been found effective against CMLV infection. The present review gives a comprehensive overview of camelpox disease with respect to its transmission, epidemiology, virion characteristics, viral life cycle, host interaction and its immune modulation.