Prevalence of arbovirus antibodies in sera of animals in Sri Lanka.

The sera of cattle, goats, dogs and crows from the Colombo area were tested for antibodies against seven arboviruses of the families Togaviridae and Bunyaviridae by a plaque-reduction neutralization microtest, using Vero cells and a stable line of pig kidney (PS) cells. The overall percentages of positive sera among the mammals were: Bhanja, 92.5%; Calovo (Batai), 30.6%; Sindbis, 13.8%; Langat, 4.8%; Tahyna, 3.9%; West Nile, 1.6%. Among the birds, 23.8% had antibodies to Bhanja virus and 9.5% to Sindbis. No antibodies against tick-borne encephalitis virus were found. The results show that at least two members of the Bunyaviridae family (Bhanja and Calovo) are highly endemic in Colombo.