Abstract:
Infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) is one of most important emerging viral diseases
among poultry industry in Sri Lanka. The present study was aimed to detect and identify the IBV in
commercial layers, broilers and village chicken in many districts of Sri Lanka by using ELISA
test. IBV suspected poultry farms were investigated from December 2016 to January 2018. An
indirect enzyme–linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was developed for screening of antibody
to avian infectious bronchitis virus (IBV). ELISA test was used and found very useful tool in
diagnosis of infected chickens. The results of determining the antibody concentration of the sera
of 413 chickens by the ELISA. In the present study, all birds 191/413 (46.24%) were serologically
positive as determined by ELISA. Most of the suspected flocks showed high level of antibody
titers to IBV by ELISA technique, broilers 42/147 (28.57 %), layers 112/215 (50.09%) and village
chickens 37/51 (72.54 %) were positive, which was expected finding due to the highly infectious
nature of the disease. It proves that IBV is prevalent in Batticaloa, Jaffna and Kurunegala
districts. While all farms visited in Kurunegala district vaccinate their birds against IBV, Farms
visited in Jaffna, Trincomalee and Batticaloa districts do not vaccinate their birds for IBV. As the
results of our investigation showed that vaccinated and non-vaccinated birds get infection of IBV,
it is essential to evaluate the efficacy of the current vaccines used in the country.
