Occurrence of Chicken Infectious Anemia Virus in Industrial and Backyard Tunisian Broilers: Preliminary Results

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Chicken infectious anemia virus (CIAV) is an immunosuppressive pathogen of chickens. In the present study, CIAV DNA was detected in a rural broiler farm in Tunisia, whereas the industrial farms sampled were negative. These results underline the importance of constant CIAV surveillance in backyard chicken Tunisian production, considering the potential role of backyard chickens as a reservoir of avian pathogens for intensive breeding. ABSTRACT: Chicken infectious anemia virus (CIAV) is an economically important and widely distributed immunosuppressive agent in chickens. This study performed an epidemiological investigation on CIAV circulation in 195 Tunisian broilers, belonging to 13 lots from five industrial farms and in one rural farm. Fifteen animals were detected positive by a VP1 nested PCR. The amplicons were molecularly characterised by complete genome sequencing. All positive samples obtained in this study were from the rural farm, whereas the industrial farms sampled were negative. Nucleotide and amino acid sequence analyses showed a high degree of similarity among the sequences obtained, suggesting the circulation of a single CIAV strain in the positive lot. Phylogenetic analysis based on the CIAV VP1 nucleotide sequence and/or the complete genome showed that the sequences obtained in this study clustered with CIAV strains previously detected in Tunisia, Italy and Egypt, belonging to genogroup II. Our results highlight the need for constant CIAV surveillance in backyard chicken production.