Invasion of exotic bovine ephemeral fever virus into Taiwan in 2013-2014.

Abstract Bovine ephemeral fever virus is a member of the family Rhabdoviridae and bovine ephemeral fever has frequently affected cattle population in Taiwan since 1967. During the outbreaks in 2013 and 2014, exotic bovine ephemeral fever viruses were detected by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and nucleotide sequencing. Sequence comparison showed that the exotic viruses shared 99.0–99.4% nucleotide identities (99.4–100.0% amino acid identities) with Chinese viruses and, on the contrary, 96.2–97.2% nucleotide identities (97.8–98.6% amino acid identities) with indigenous Taiwanese viruses. Additionally, our phylogenetic analysis also supported that the newly invaded bovine ephemeral fever viruses were closely related to the Chinese strains. These exotic 2013–2014 viruses have become prevalent and displaced indigenous virus strains since their appearance.