what is lumpy skin disease virus

The evolution of lumpy skin disease virus

 Lumpy Skin Disease (LSD) is a viral disease that predomi­nantly affects cattle. First identified in an outbreak in Zambia in 1929, the disease is caused by the LSD virus (LSDV), a poxvirus of the ge­nus capripoxvirus. Until the 1980s. multiple outbreaks of LSD were confined to the Afri­can continent. The first re­ports of infections outside Africa were in 1989 from Is­rael. In 2016, LSD was report­ed from Russia and South­East European nations. In the In­dian subcontinent, the dis­ease was initially observed in Bangladesh in 2019, followed by China, India, Nepal, Bhu­tan, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Myanmar.

                                      

The first complete genome sequence of LSDV (Neethling strain) was available in 2001 and suggested a large DNA ge­nome. This strain was origi­nally isolated in Kenya in 1958. Lumpy Skin Disease Adaptation of poxviruses are dominated by genomic muta­tions, deletions and recombi­nations.

Recombinant viruses

LSD outbreaks were reported in Russia during 2015­2019. The virus isolated from 2015 and 2016 was similar to the earlier genomes. However, the use of homologous (atten­uated) LSDV vaccine in 2016 did not end the outbreak and subsequently vaccine­like iso­lates were obtained from af­fected cattle in 2017. By 2018, all field isolates of LSDV in Russia were replaced by virus­es bearing genetic signatures of the LSDV vaccine, suggest­ing that the outbreak of LSD in Russia during 2017­2019 was due to a novel LSDV recombi­nant variant.

Recombination events are now well catalogued in poxvi­ruses and mediated by the poxvirus DNA polymerases in cells being co­infected by vi­ruses of same or different ge­nus. Recombination of patho­genicand vaccine strains are, therefore, Lumpy Skin Disease likely when an in­fected animal is immunised or nfection occurs in the pre­im­mune phase after vaccination.

Genomes from India

In August 2019, suspected cas­es of LSD were observed in Odisha. The first laboratory­confirmed outbreak of LSD was subsequently reported in November 2019. Sequences of particular genes of the isolat­ed virus from the 2019 out­break were genetically similar to strains from Kenya.

In July 2022, large outbreak of LSD was reported from Guj­arat and Rajasthan, which subsequently spread to 11 oth­er States with over 80,000 cattle deaths.

In collaboration with the Department of Animal Hus­bandry in Rajasthan, CSIR­IGIB reported the whole ge­nome sequences of six iso­lates of LSDV collected from five affected animals. A total of 177 unique mutations were found compared Lumpy Skin Disease to the Neeth­ling strain from Kenya. Out of these, 47 were not present in any other global genome se­quences of LSDV.

                                           

Phylogenetic analysis of the isolates showed that the cur­rent virus strain is unrelated to the virus found in India as well as other global genomes of LSDV. The closest genomes to the viral isolates from the current outbreak comprise 12 sequences belonging to other Asian and European countries that were collected Lumpy Skin Disease from 2012­2022. Further, the presence of an additional mutation in two samples from the same ani­mal and the large number of mutations potentially suggests that LSDV may be able to evolve fast within the host.

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We need to accept that ani­mal and plant health are key to human health, and forms the basis of One Health. As we move towards industrialised agriculturein the era of cli­mate change,Lumpy Skin Disease the need has never been acute for prepa­redness with newer and bet­ter tools like molecular sur­veillance and digital technologies to identify and stop emerging pathogens.

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