Pathological investigations and molecular characterization of infectious bursal disease virus from poultry farms of western Maharashtra of India

Abstract

Infectious bursal disease is one of the most important immunosuppressive diseases of birds. Present study was conducted to identify the agent of a suggestive clinical case of Gumboro disease that affected 14-29 day-old broiler chicken flocks in Satara and Pune district of western Maharashtra in the year 2016. The affected birds showed enlarged, hemorrhagic, swollen as well as atrophied bursa of fabricious with cheesy exudate, swollen mottled kidney and muscular hemorrhages. Histopathological evaluation revealed hemorrhages and depletion of lymphoid cells in bursal follicles. The bursal tissue samples were collected for reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction to amplify the VP2 gene having 1.3 kb size, using specific primers. Although, the poultry flocks were vaccinated against IBDv, the occurrence of infectious bursal disease is reported between the age group of 14 to 29 in broiler chicken.