The serologic investigation and viral isolation of bluetongue virus in Shangri‐La in Southwest China

Bluetongue is an arthropod‐borne viral disease of ruminants caused by bluetongue virus (BTV). In China, BTV is relatively common in Yunnan Province with the exception of northern regions around Shangri‐La, where the average altitude is approximately 3,450 metres. Recently, the seroprevalence of BTV has been measured in yaks in Shangri‐La; therefore, this study investigated BTV infections in this area. The serological investigation in five villages in Shangri‐La showed that there were sporadic BTV infections in yaks (20 of 507 positive) during 2014 to 2017, while the seroprevalence of BTV at three goat farms in a nearby river valley was 35%–65% in 2017. Subsequently, 20 sentinel goats were kept on two separate farms in the river valley and monitored for seroconversion between May and September of 2017. Five of the sentinel animals were tested positive for antibodies to BTV by C‐ELISA during the study period, and 13 BTV isolates were isolated from ten sentinel animals. All isolates were identified as the same serotype, and the complete nucleotide sequence of one was determined. The genomic sequences showed that the isolated BTV strain belonged to serotype 21 and had approximately 99.8%–100% homology with three Indonesian BTV‐21 strains (D151, RIVS‐66 and RIVS‐60) between their coding sequences (CDSs) except for Seg4 (99.5%). Besides, our data suggested that this BTV‐21 strain might have also infected some local yaks and sheep.