New Research Publication on Ovine Respiratory Syncytial Virus

I am pleased to announce that a paper describing my research on the ovine strain of Respiratory Syncytial Virus was published in the October 2023 issue of the Canadian Journal of Veterinary Research.

Respiratory Syncytial Virus causes lower respiratory tract disease in humans and cattle. The cattle strain of Respiratory Syncytial Virus plays an important role in enzootic pneumonia in young dairy calves and summer pneumonia in nursing beef calves globally.

Clinical disease from Respiratory Syncytial Virus infection in sheep is not well defined. However, it is quite likely that the disease in lambs’ mirrors that in humans and cattle.

Pneumonia in Australian sheep is common.

I recently completed an abattoir survey to determine the prevalence of the sheep respiratory pathogens circulating in flocks in southern Australia. The project was a non-blinded, cross-sectional, observational study with sample collection at sheep abattoirs in Australia.

As part of the abattoir survey, I collected samples (bronchial swabs) from 1095 sets of lungs representing 253 abattoir lots of sheep and lambs.

The bronchial swabs were tested for ovine Respiratory Syncytial Virus using an in-house qPCR based on the F gene sequence of the virus.

Six of the 253 abattoir lots (2.4%) tested positive for ovine Respiratory Syncytial Virus, including three abattoir lots from New South Wales, two abattoir lots from Western Australia and one abattoir lot from South Australia.

Four of the abattoir lots positive for the virus were lambs and two were adult sheep.