DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Being the largest producer of milk in the world, the spread of LSD
across the cattle population in India thus has devastating effects on
the agrarian economy as well as the livelihoods of dairy farmers (FAO,
UN). Although other capripoxvirus infections including sheep pox and
goat pox are endemic in India, LSDV infections were considered to be
constrained to the Sub-Saharan African region till 1981
(Das et al., 2021). As the
virus continues to spread and evolve, genomic characterization of LSDV
is thus useful for understanding the epidemiology and evolution of the
virus.
In this study, we have reported the whole-genome sequences of 6 viral
isolates of LSDV that were collected from the state of Rajasthan during
an ongoing outbreak of infections in India. Analysis of the 6 viral
isolates shows that the genomes from the 2022 outbreak of the disease
form contain a large number of genetic variants as compared to previous
genomes available in the public domain. The presence of an additional
variant (LSDVgp037:D286V) in the virus isolated from skin scab as
compared to nasal swab of the one host animal is suggestive of potential
intra-host evolution of LSDV.
The genome sequences also form a distinct cluster on the phylogenetic
tree of all publicly available LDSV genome sequences and bear limited
similarity to other global genomes. Due to the limited number of genome
sequences available for LSDV, the source of the outbreak could not be
traced, further suggesting that additional genomes for the virus could
help uncover potential outbreaks and connect existing outbreaks that are
apparently unrelated.
Put together, the study iterates that genomic surveillance for
characterising circulating strains of important transboundary infectious
agents during ongoing outbreaks, such as LSD, is essential for early
detection of the disease as well as for formulating interventions for
disease control.