Seroprevalence of avian infectious bronchitis virus in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) is one of most important emerging viral diseases among poultry industry in Sri Lanka. The present study was aimed to detect and identify the IBV in commercial layers, broilers and village chicken in many districts of Sri Lanka by using ELISA test. IBV suspected poultry farms were investigated from December 2016 to January 2018. An indirect enzyme–linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was developed for screening of antibody to avian infectious bronchitis virus (IBV). ELISA test was used and found very useful tool in diagnosis of infected chickens. The results of determining the antibody concentration of the sera of 413 chickens by the ELISA. In the present study, all birds 191/413 (46.24%) were serologically positive as determined by ELISA. Most of the suspected flocks showed high level of antibody titers to IBV by ELISA technique, broilers 42/147 (28.57 %), layers 112/215 (50.09%) and village chickens 37/51 (72.54 %) were positive, which was expected finding due to the highly infectious nature of the disease. It proves that IBV is prevalent in Batticaloa, Jaffna and Kurunegala districts. While all farms visited in Kurunegala district vaccinate their birds against IBV, Farms visited in Jaffna, Trincomalee and Batticaloa districts do not vaccinate their birds for IBV. As the results of our investigation showed that vaccinated and non-vaccinated birds get infection of IBV, it is essential to evaluate the efficacy of the current vaccines used in the country.