Publications by authors named "Krupali Parekh"

Despite the annual vaccination of livestock against foot and mouth disease (FMD) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), outbreaks of the disease continue to be reported. The effective control of field outbreaks by vaccination requires that the vaccines used are antigenically matched to circulating field FMD viruses. In this study, a vaccine matching analysis was performed using the two-dimensional virus neutralization test (VNT) for three field isolates belonging to the O/ME-SA/PanAsia-2/ANT-10 and O/ME-SA/SA-2018 lineages collected from different FMD outbreaks that occurred within the Abu Dhabi Emirate in 2021 affecting (), goat, and sheep.

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Article Synopsis
  • Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is a viral disease affecting mainly sheep and goats, but can also infect other animals like buffalos and camels, highlighting concerns about how the virus spreads between wildlife and livestock.
  • Validated serological tools, such as the virus neutralisation test (VNT) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), have been used to detect previous infections but their effectiveness for atypical species is still uncertain.
  • A study analyzing 793 serum samples found that while VNT and ELISAs showed a high agreement (75-88%) for typical species, the accuracy dropped significantly (44-62%) for atypical species, indicating a need for better diagnostic approaches in these cases.
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Antigen banks have been established to supply foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) vaccines at short notice to respond to incursions or upsurges in cases of FMDV infection. Multiple vaccine strains are needed to protect against specific FMDV lineages that circulate within six viral serotypes that are unevenly distributed across the world. The optimal selection of distinct antigens held in a bank must carefully balance the desire to cover these risks with the costs of purchasing and maintaining vaccine antigens.

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Article Synopsis
  • Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is a viral disease affecting goats and sheep, significantly impacting livelihoods and livestock trade in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia; wild artiodactyls are also susceptible to the PPR virus (PPRV), posing risks to endangered species.
  • A study conducted in Kenya and Tanzania from 2015-2016 found 19.7% of sampled wild artiodactyls were seropositive for PPRV, with African buffalo and Grant's gazelle populations showing seroprevalence rates of 12.0% and 1.1%, respectively, in 2018-2019.
  • Findings indicate that PPRV infection
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In foot-and-mouth disease (FMD)-endemic countries, vaccination is commonly used to control the disease, whilst in FMD-free countries, vaccination is considered as an option, in addition to culling the infected and in contact animals. FMD vaccines are mainly comprised of inactivated virions and stimulate protective antibodies to virus structural proteins. In contrast, infection with FMD virus leads to virus replication and additional antibody responses to viral nonstructural proteins (NSP).

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In the recent past, peste des petits ruminants (PPR) emerged in East Africa causing outbreaks in small livestock across different countries, with evidences of spillover to wildlife. In order to understand better PPR at the wildlife-livestock interface, we investigated patterns of peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV) exposure, disease outbreaks, and viral sequences in the northern Albertine Rift. PPRV antibodies indicated a widespread exposure in apparently healthy wildlife from South Sudan (2013) and Uganda (2015, 2017).

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Livestock production in Africa is key to national economies, food security and rural livelihoods, and > 85% of livestock keepers live in extreme poverty. With poverty elimination central to the Sustainable Development Goals, livestock keepers are therefore critically important. Foot-and-mouth disease is a highly contagious livestock disease widespread in Africa that contributes to this poverty.

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The role which West and Central African wildlife populations might play in the transmission dynamics of FMD is not known nor have studies been performed in order to assess the distribution and prevalence of FMD in wild animal species inhabiting those specific regions of Africa. This study reports the FMD serological profile extracted from samples (n = 696) collected from wildlife of West and Central Africa between 1999 and 2003. An overall prevalence of FMDV NSP reactive sera of 31.

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