Bovine Viral Diarrhea-an Emerging Disease in Camelids a Review

Bovine Viral Diarrhea (BVD) is an emerging disease in both New World Camelids (NWCs) and Old World Camelids (OWCs). The virus has been isolated from NWCs particularly in alpacas and dromedaries, but there are no reports of BVD in Bactrians. BVD is an important infectious disease. Both sub-genotypes 1a, 1b and genotype 2 have been isolated from NWCs but the ncp BVDV 1b is primarily implicated in cases of BVD in NWCs. A BVD strain unique to camelids has not yet been isolated. In NWCs virtually all infections have been caused by the non-cytopathic (ncp) BVDV, Persistently infected crias have also been detected. Llamas and alpacas demonstrate clinical signs such as ill thrift, diarrhea, respiratory ailments and abortions. As in bovines, identification and elimination of PI animals, has the highest priority to avoid infection of the entire herd. BVD was also observed in dromedaries and interestingly, both genotypes of the Pestivirus, BVDV-1 and BVDV-2, were isolated from dromedaries in Egypt. Both isolates revealed a cytopathic effect (cpe) and so far no ncp virus has been isolated from dromedaries. Also in dromedaries, BVD infections caused intrauterine death, stillbirth, weak calf syndrome with congenital deformities, neonatal respiratory disorders in young dromedary calves and acute hemorrhagic gastroenteritis in adult dromedaries. So far, no PI dromedaries have been described.