*Present address: Avian Diseases Laboratory, Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal ... communication reports the natural occurrence of Newcastle disease (ND) in ...
Tropical Animal Health and Production, 30 (1998) 177^178 # 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands
Clinical Note ISOLATION OF NEWCASTLE DISEASE VIRUS FROM AN INDIAN HOUSE CROW P. ROY1, A.T. VENUGOPALAN1 AND R. MANVELL2* Centre for Animal Health Studies, Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Madhavaram Milk Colony, Madras 600 051, India; 2Avian Virology, Central Veterinary Laboratory, Newhaw, Weybridge, KT15 3NB, UK *Present address: Avian Diseases Laboratory, Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Trichy Road, Namakkal 637001, Tamil Nadu, India
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Roy, P., Venugopalan, A.T. and Manvell, R., 1998. Isolation of Newcastle disease virus from an Indian house crow. Tropical Animal Health and Production, 30(3), 177^178
Indian house crows (Cervus splendens splendens) live in close contact with man, animals and birds. They eat a wide variety of foods including insects and carcasses and can thus act as carriers of disease agents, transmitting them from one area to another. This communication reports the natural occurrence of Newcastle disease (ND) in an Indian house crow. The crow was found moribund near the o¤ce of the Centre for Animal Health Studies, and was showing nervous symptoms. On necropsy no pathognomic lesion could be seen. Pooled organs of spleen, brain and intestinal contents were processed and inoculated into 10-day-old embryonated hens' eggs for virus isolation (Alexander, 1988). Embryos died 60 to 96 h after inoculation. Harvested clear allantoic £uid (AF) showed haemagglutination (HA) with 1% chicken erythrocytes. The HA activity was inhibited by Newcastle disease virus (NDV) speci¢c antiserum in the haemagglutination inhibition (HI) test, con¢rming the isolate as NDV (Alexander, 1988). To characterize the isolate, the mean death time (MDT) in 10-day-old embryonated hens' eggs and intracerebral pathogenicity index (ICPI) in day-old chicks were performed as described by Alexander (1988). The NDV isolate showed MDT of 72 h and ICPI value of 0.96 indicating a mesogenic strain of NDV (Hanson and Brandly, 1955; Alexander, 1988). The isolate was grouped, based on its binding pattern with monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) at the Central Veterinary Laboratory (CVL), UK (Russell and Alexander, 1983). The isolate was con¢rmed as NDV (paramyxo virus-1) and a high HI titre was detected using mAb U85 (speci¢c for most classical strains of NDV) and 7D4 (mAb prepared against LaSota strain of NDV). The isolate was placed under group E (B1/LaSota-like viruses) based on the immunoperoxidase test using mAbs. Cooper (1931) observed the death of crows during an outbreak of ND in fowls. Pearson and McCann (1975) isolated virulent NDV from one crow out of 9446 free£ying wild birds which were common in quarantine areas and around poultry farms in southern California. 177
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Since ND is endemic in Madras and a number of poultry farms are located in the vicinity, the crow could have picked up infection by eating an NDV-infected poultry carcass. The isolation of NDV from the crow highlights the potential role of crows in transmitting NDV. REFERENCES Alexander, D.J., 1988. Newcastle disease diagnosis. In: D.J. Alexander (ed.), Newcastle Disease, (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston), 147^160 Cooper, H., 1931. Ranikhet disease: a new disease of fowls in India due to a ¢lter passing virus. The Indian Journal of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, 1, 107^123 Hanson, R.P. and Brandly, C.A., 1955. Identi¢cation of vaccine strains of Newcastle disease virus. Science, 122, 156^157 Pearson, G.L. and McCann, M.K., 1975. The role of indigenous wild, semidomestic and exotic birds in the epizootiology of velogenic visceratropic Newcastle disease in southern California, 1972^1973. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 167, 610^614 Russell, P.H. and Alexander, D.J., 1983. Antigenic variation of Newcastle disease virus strains detected by monoclonal antibodies. Archives of Virology, 75, 243^253 (Accepted: July 1997)
