Prevalence of Rotavirus Infections in Small Ruminants

In the present study, fecal samples from different localities at Giza governorate, Egypt were collected from 228 sheep lambs and 79 goat Kids 1-8 week old suffered from acute diarrhea and gastroenteritis during winter season. They were examined for detection of rotavirus antigen using latex agglutination test (LAT) and ELISA technique. Results revealed that out of 228 fecal samples of lambs 28 (12.3 %) and out of the 79 goat kids 6 (7.9%) were positive to Rotavirus antigen by serial testing using ELISA and LAT, meanwhile by parallel testing 40(17.5%) lambs, 10(13.2%) goat kids were positive to Rotavirus antigen with 95.2% and 93.7% observed proportion agreement between both tests respectively in lambs and goat kids. Using RT- PCR technique for confirmation of rotavirus detection, all positive samples were confirmed positive for detection of rotavirus genome except one ELISA positive goat kid. The results also indicated that goat kids are less frequently infected with Rotavirus infection than lambs, also Rota virus antigen was not detected in diarrheic lambs of less than three week old and in diarrheic goat kids less than 2 week old and 90% of the reported cases occur between 3-7 weeks old in both species. It was concluded that the LAT can be used to quickly identify the Rotavirus in cases of neonatal young small ruminant diarrhea and it would facilitate the rapid implementation of effective control measures at herd level, but at individual level to minimize the false negative reactors and to estimate the prevalence of infection parallel testing using both LAT and ELISAs. PCR is recommended to increase the overall sensitivity.