2024 Volume 77 Issue 3 Pages e51-e56
Cattle persistently infected (PI) with Bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) were surveyed in dairy herds in Ibaraki Prefecture from 2018 to 2023. Antibody screening using bulk tank milk samples revealed that 69 out of 1,713 samples were positive. Follow-up tests on 7 of the 69 farms with antibody-positive samples identified 13 PI cattle. All PI cattle detected were calves or heifers. The BVDV gene was not detected in 527 milk tanker samples, indicating that there were no PI cows in the lactating herd. These results suggest that the introduction and spread of BVDV by PI cattle in dairy herds can be effectively prevented by identifying and culling PI cattle at the earliest possible age using milk tanker and bulk tank milk samples for viral RNA and viral-specific antibody detection in Ibaraki prefecture.
