حسام محسن عبد الوهاب الرفيعي

Background and Aim: Infectious bronchitis (IB) has an influential economic impact on the poultry industry, causing huge losses each year due to the condemnation of infected chickens. Despite the use of many kinds of vaccines in Iraq, it is common to find IB problems in vaccinated chickens. Information about the strains that affect Iraqi chickens is very limited. Therefore, we aimed to detect the currently circulating strains of IB virus that cause frequent outbreaks in egg layers despite the use of vaccination against the virus. Materials and Methods: Isolate detection, sequencing, and phylogenetic analysis were performed using a rapid IB virus antigen kit (32 tracheal swabs), flinders technology associates (FTA) card (32 tracheal swabs), and partial gene sequencing (16 positive FTA samples). Results: The isolated strain was different from other strains, especially the strain isolated in the North of Iraq (Sulemania Strain) and shares 98% homology with an Israeli strain (Israel variant 2, IS 1494). Conclusion: Although more studies are needed to detect IB virus strains circulating in Iraq, this work lays the foundation for making a good strategy to control the disease and selecting vaccines that should be used in farms.

Background and Aim: Infectious bronchitis (IB) has an influential economic impact on the poultry industry, causing huge losses each year due to the condemnation of infected chickens. Despite the use of many kinds of vaccines in Iraq, it is common to find IB problems in vaccinated chickens. Information about the strains that affect Iraqi chickens is very limited. Therefore, we aimed to detect the currently circulating strains of IB virus that cause frequent outbreaks in egg layers despite the use of vaccination against the virus. Materials and Methods: Isolate detection, sequencing, and phylogenetic analysis were performed using a rapid IB virus antigen kit (32 tracheal swabs), flinders technology associates (FTA) card (32 tracheal swabs), and partial gene sequencing (16 positive FTA samples). Results: The isolated strain was different from other strains, especially the strain isolated in the North of Iraq (Sulemania Strain) and shares 98% homology with an Israeli strain (Israel variant 2, IS 1494). Conclusion: Although more studies are needed to detect IB virus strains circulating in Iraq, this work lays the foundation for making a good strategy to control the disease and selecting vaccines that should be used in farms.

The definition of the Newcastle disease (ND) under the World Organization for Animal Health strategy is that chicken which infected with ND virulent (NDV) strains of avian paramyxovirus (APM). The current work included the identification of pathogenic properties (PPs) of serotype 1 belongs to AP that was detected in samples collected from severe-ND-affected chickens. The detection was performed measuring heamaglutination inhibition (HI), intracerebral pathogenicity index (ICPI), and mean death time (MDT) for in vivo exploration and real time-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), restriction enzyme analysis (REA), and DNA sequencing of the F2/F1 cleavage site for the in vitro investigation. This study is the first genetic-based analysis of the ND virus in Iraq. Complete correlation between the in vivo and in vitro results was recognized. The findings of the in vivo investigation showed that the strain was pathogenic and at the same time the structural patterns of the restriction plus the sequence of the amino acids were typical for virulent strain which resemble with 99% Iranian strain. This study adds new information about the pathology and antigen distribution of this novel virus in Iraq and additional work is needed to get a complete data base of viral diversity and procedure for vaccinating and eliminating from this disease in our country.

ABSTRACT For the first time in Iraq, we identified in March, 2018 the presence of a highly virulent avian influenza virus (AIV), H5N1 (Clade 2.3.2.1c), causing highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in poultry farms, Iraq, . The identification of the virus was done using a rapid serological test, a real time-qPCR, and glycoprotein gene sequencing. Using sequencing and phylogenetic analyses, the clade 2.3.2.1c virus was recorded to be clustered, with high similarity to Asian and West African AIV, HPAI H5N1 from Ivory Coast identified in 2015. According to our knowledge, there was no previous detection of the clade 2.3.2.1c made in Iraq. Our results provide evidence that high risk of HPAI H5 outbreaks might be present in Iraq, and this needs to lead to high quality surveillance targeting of wild and domestic birds for early diagnosis of HPAI. The current work provides feasible and accurate approaches for understanding the evolution of HPAI H5 virus in different countries around the world.

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