Isolation and Identification of EHV-I from Aborted Mare at Early Stage Pregnancy

The current study was planned to isolate and identify the Equine herpesvirus-1 (EHV-1) from liver, lung, spleen and fetal fluid, collected from five aborted fetuses of Arabian mares at the last trimester of pregnancy, with condensing on the 6th case of early embryonic death at two months of pregnancy. Aborted fetuses and paired sera sample of their dames were submitted from a private stud in Cairo, with history of recurrent abortion. An attempt for isolation of the causative agent was carried on Chorio-Allantoic membrane (CAM) of specific pathogen free- embryonated chicken eggs (SPF-ECE) and tissue culture (VERO cells).EHV-1 was isolated from 5 out of 6 aborted cases (No.6 is one of them) given a characteristic pock lesion and CPE with titer ranged from 8 -9.5 log10 EID50 at 3rd egg passage and 7 -8.5 log10 TCID50 at 5th cell culture passage. Isolated virus was identified by Virus Neutralization (VN) test, Fluorescent Antibody Technique (FAT) and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). On the other hand there was more than four fold increase in the EHV-1 antibodies titer by Enzyme Linked Immune-Sorbent Assay (ELISA) in the convalescent sera sample which indicates recent infection by EHV-1.