Investigation of malignant form of sheep pox outbreak in fattening lambs in Mandya, Karnataka

Sheep pox is an endemic and economically important viral disease of small ruminants in India. The present study describes detailed investigation of sheep pox disease outbreak in fattening lambs. The disease outbreak occurred in month of January in a village of Mandya District of Karnataka state in the organized farm. Despite the presence of goats in the same flock, the disease affected sheep only. The clinical signs and post-mortem findings were suggestive of malignant form of sheep pox, which is more frequently recorded in lambs. The duration of disease was 30 days with morbidity and mortality rates of 50.91% and 19.09%, respectively. The capripox virus was identified in the clinical and morbid samples by partial P32 gene based PCR. The sheep pox virus was confirmed by virus isolation and sequencing of full length P32 gene. The sheep poxvirus isolate sequence from the present outbreak, genetically resembled with sheep poxvirus isolates from India and other countries. In conclusion, based on clinical, isolation, PCR and sequence analysis the outbreak was attributed to sheep poxvirus, which highlights the need of at least two separate vaccines for control of sheep and goat pox disease.