Isolation and Identification of Foot and Mouth Disease Virus from Convalescent Sheep in Jordan

In Jordan, the Foot and Mouth Disease Vitus (FMDV) infection among sheep herds resulted in a two intermittent outbreaks at years 2006 to 2008. The present work was undertaken to isolate and serotype the virus from convalescent sheep, which exposed to the natural infection. A total of 113 orp-pharyngeal swabs (OP) were collected from convalescent sheep after the two outbreaks. FMDV was isolated using cell culture of BHK-21 cells that induced clear cytopathogenic changes (CPE) in comparison to the reference control (non-infected cells). Nine out of (113) of OP swabs were showed cellular changes on BHK-21 cells (7.96%). The concentrations of virus isolates that induced CPE which confirmed by the infectivity titration, revealed a significant correlation between the rate and morphological changes of CPE and the virus titers. The cell culture adapted virus with or without CPE formation were serotyped using the capture ELISA. The obtained serotypes were O and A. The O serotype represented the highest percentage of (5.3%), and serotype A represented the least percentage (2.65%).