Isolation and Molecular Characterization of Infectious Laryngotrachitis Virus from Poultry in and Around Bishoftu Town and the Bordering District Liban Cuqala

Infectious Laryngotrachitis is an important respiratory disease of chicken caused by <i>gallid herpes virus-І</i> belonged to family <i>Herpesviridae</i>, subfamily <i>Alphaherpesvirinae,</i> genus <i>Iltovirus</i> The disease has little or no previous documented data in the country. The study was conducted from November 2022 to June 2022 by a cross-sectional study design with purposive sampling strategy. In this study, a molecular detection of ILTV were conducted generally in 12 pooled samples out of the total 40 poultries sampled from peasant Associations (PAs) of in and around Bishoftu town and the bordering district Liban Cuqala. Swab samples from upper trachea and tracheal tissue samples were collected from the selected PAs in the study area. From the total 12 pooled samples, 3 samples were positively detected for the presence of Infectious Laryngotrachitis. The study revealed an overall PCR detection of 25%. Three strains of ILT namely ICP4, TCO low and TCO high were detected with the general master mix that can bind with all of the ILT strains. Generally, ILTV were one of the serious avian respiratory pathogen challenging the study areas resulted in high economic losses. Control and prevention measures through vaccination programmed should schedule within the viral strains.