Adaptation of Virulent Field Isolate of Duck Plague Virus (DPV) in Embryonated Chicken Eggs

Abstract

Duck plague is one of the most common viral disease of ducks in India (Mukerji et al., 1963; Rajan et al., 1980; Bhowmik and Ray, 1987; Kulkarni et al., 1995). It is caused by Anatid alpha herpesvirus-1 also known as duck enteritis virus (DEV)/duck plague virus (DPV) which belongs to Herpesviridae family (Li et al., 2009), causes an acute disease with high mortality in ducks, geese and swans of all age groups. Usually the affected birds show depression, enteritis and paralysis of legs and dies within 4-5 days. Although this disease effectively controlled by live attenuated vaccine (Holland strain) in India which is in use for more than 60 years (Jansen, 1961), currently this vaccine is produced from embryonated chicken eggs which has some bottlenecks.