DOI: 10.36347/sjavs.2015.v02i03.004

Pages: 174-179

Bluetongue (BT) is a noncontagious disease caused by an Orbivirus of the family Reoviridae. Bluetongue virus (BTV) is transmitted by arthropods of the genus Culicoides and its distribution worldwide is restricted to regions that contain competent vectors. This study was to describe the distribution and seroprevalence of BTV infection of sheep in Ilam province of Iran by competitive ELISA, and BTV was diagnosed by RT-PCR and nested PCR, by targeting S7 segment. BTV infection was widespread in the province as 104 of 237 (43.88%) of the sheep sera evaluated contained antibodies to BTV. This genome segment was sequenced and analyzed in three samples as a conserved gene in BTV serogroup. The phylogenetic evaluation showed that I9, I84, I90 viruses were very similar to west BTV strains from US, Africa and Europe. These viruses were categorized with BTV4 from Turkey.