Seroprevalence of infectious laryngotracheitis disease in backyard chickens in villages of Ada'a district, Oromia, Ethiopia: first report.

As per the report from the OIE in 2005, infectious laryngotracheitis (ILT) has not been yet reported in Ethiopia. Hence, considering the evident clinical signs on-field associated with the disease, it felt that there is a need to identify the disease and to protect the chicken population. The study was, therefore, aimed at identifying the seroprevalence of ILT virus from the samples collected from chickens in backyard system, so as to notify its prevalence and setup recommendations for further research in the future. Consequently, cross-sectional study was conducted in eleven purposefully selected peasant associations (PA) of Ada'a district from January to May 2019 to determine ILT in backyard chickens. A total number of 426 sera sample of backyard chickens were randomly collected from 11 PA and each sera was exposed to an indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (iELISA), at the National Animal Health Diagnostic and Investigation Center, Ethiopia. Out of 426 samples, 233 (54.7%) samples were found positive for ILT virus-specific antibody. The highest prevalence was recorded in Wajitu (83.3%), whereas the least was in Giche (40.7%) PA. There was a statistically significant difference (p < 0.05) among seroprevalence and study PA. The result of this study revealed that a high prevalence of ILT virus is circulating among backyard chickens in the selected PA of Ada'a district, which could significantly affect the poultry sector. Thus, further studies on the circulating strains and the epidemiology of the disease should be carried using a molecular diagnostic test.