Sero Status and Presumed Risk Factors Assessment for Bovine Herpesvirus-1 in North Western, Ethiopia

Abstract

A cross sectional study was conducted from November 2020 to June 2021 on a total of 442 randomly selected indigenous zebus (bos indicus) of extensively and semi-intensively managed cattle’s. These cattle’s were sampled from East Gojam (n=137), west Gojam (n=160) and Awi zone (n=145) north western part of Ethiopia. Indirect Enzyme-Linked Immune-Sorbent Assay (I-ELISA) was used to detect antibodies specific to Bovine Herpes Virus-1 (BoHV-1). The relationship of the categories under the variables was analyzed using a chisquare descriptive statistic. Logistic regression analyses were also used to assess potential predictive factors associated with the outcome variable. An overall animal level sero-prevalence of BoHV-1 antibodies were 77.6% (95% CI: 73.5-81.3%) for the present study. In a random-effects of an adjusted logistic regression model, geographically the sero-prevalence of BoHV-1 exposure was higher for cattle’s from East Gojam (Odds ratio [OR] =0.2; p=0.002) than in Awi zone (OR=1.4; p=0.377) and West Gojam. The likelihood of disease occurrence for introduced cattle’s were relatively higher (OR=0.4; p= 0.001) than homebred. Age of cattle’s and parity status of heifers/cows were significantly associated with BoHV-1 infection (p<0.001). The risk of infection was also positively correlated with the occurrence of respiratory problem (OR=2.2; P=0.048). Thus, this result signifies that BoHV-1 is widely circulating among the indigenous zebus in the study areas. Given that there was no BoHV-1 vaccination delivery in the study area and in the country as a whole, control and prevention measures using marker vaccines were highly recommended.