Analysis of the association of Infectious Bovine Keratoconjunctivitis with Bovine Herpes Virus-1, in calves from three months to one year of age in Uruguay

Abstract

The objective of this work was to determine the relationship between Bovine Herpesvirus- 1 (BHV-1), ethiologic agent Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis (IBR), and the presence of Infectious Bovine Keratoconjunctivitis (IBK) in beef calves younger than one year old. A case - control study was performed on 160 calves between the ages of three months and 1 year old, 80 cases and 80 controls. A clinical scale for IBK was used to evaluate every case and control. An indirect ELISA technique was used on all the animals for the diagnosis of specific antibodies for BHV-1 Ig G type. Also, 39 random samples of ocular swabs were taken from cases and controls for the detection of BHV-1 by PCR. The odds ratio found was 1,0 for a significance level of 95%. With a superior confidence level of 7.2 and an inferior confidence level of 0.13 for the serological samples. On the other hand, the results of the PCR ocular secretion tests for BHV-1 detection were negative, not being able to estimate statistics. According to the results, it is not possible to acertain an existing relationship between the two studied variables, IBK disease and positive serology for BHV-1, corresponding to the risk factor that was considered.