Distribution of Serotypes of Foot and Mouth Disease Virus Among Different Outbreaks Occurring in Punjab Province, Pakistan (2001-2010)

Foot and mouth disease virus (FMDV) comes under genus Aphthovirus and family Picornaviridae and it causes a severe vesicular disease in cloven footed animals especially cattle. It has seven different serotypes but only four of them (O, A, Asia I, C) are prevalent in Pakistan. The present study was aimed to evaluate the prevalence of these serotypes in Punjab province, Pakistan. A total of 659 samples were collected from different outbreaks of FMD occurring in Punjab province from 2001 to 2010. The samples were analysed by complement fixation test by using commercially available hyper immune sera of 4 serotypes. Results showed that 234 samples were positive for FMDV out of which 178 (27.01%) samples were positive for O, 4 (0.60%) for A, 48 (7.28%) for Asia I and 4 (0.60%) for C from 659 number of samples.