Investigation of the prevalence of bovine viral diarrhoea virus in dairy cows in South Korea

Abstract

Blood samples were collected from 1328 dairy cows of different parities in 46 herds in two regions of South Korea and tested for bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) by reverse transcriptase-PCR (RT-PCR) for the detection of viral sequences in whole blood and by a commercial ELISA for the detection of BVDV-specific antibodies. None of the animals was positive by RT-PCR but 770 (58 per cent) were seropositive. The proportion of seropositive cows increased with their parity, but there was no difference between the seroprevalence of BVDV among the cows in the two regions.