Ostrich Pox Virus Infection in Farms at Some Northern Egyptian Governorates

This work was aimed to study the epidemiology and possible control ways of ostrich pox virus in Egypt during the period from 2011-2012. For this purpose, virological examination of 33 skin samples from 429 diseased ostriches and their premises (12 samples from feather and 10 samples from mosquitos). Samples were collected from diseased ostriches of all ages suffered from dry and wet pox lesions from 11 ostriches farms at Sharkia, Kalubia and Ismailia Governorates and used for isolation of ostrich pox virus. The diseased ostriches were subjected to clinical, postmortem, serological and histopathological examinations. All pock lesion induction samples were positive for agar gel precipitation test (AGPT) for pox virus. Experimental infection of 6- week-old turkey poults by the isolated ostrich pox virus (1x10^6.5 PFU/ml) from skin lesions, (1 x 10^7.3 PFU/ml) from feathers and (1.5 x 10^7.5 PFU/ml) from mosquitoes revealed high pathogenicity to dry and wet lesions, histopathological changes and sero-conversion. Experimental infection of 9- week-old ostrich previously vaccinated at 6-week-old with live attenuated fowl pox vaccine revealed no clinicopathogical effects while the experimentally infected unvaccinated ostriches revealed high pathogenicity to dry lesions. In conclusion, early vaccination of ostriches with live attenuated fowl pox vaccine at 6-week-old with the control of mosquitos prevented the appearance of natural ostrich pox virus infection.