Serological and Virological Investigation of West Nile Virus Infection in Resident Breeder Horses at ？anl？urfa Province

The West Nile Virus (BNV) is a zoonotic disease agent that is a member of the Flaviviridae family and which is transmitted by artopods and can cause encephalitis in humans, horses, birds and various wild animals. The natural vec-tor of the BNV is the Culex and Aedes genus mosquitoes, and there is an important contamination chain between these arthropods and wild birds. In the infection spectrum of BNV, mammalian animals such as horses, humans, dogs, sheep, and domestic poultry such as chickens can be found. In this study, it was aimed to investigate West Nile virus infection in serological (ELISA and PRNT) and virological (Real Time RT-PCR) in breeding horses in located in ？anl？urfa. For this purpose, blood serum samples taken from 277 breeding horses in 10 different centers in ？anl？urfa province were used. Samples were first subjected to BNV Ab ELISA and evaluated for antibody presence. 42 (15.16%) of the samples were seropositive, 16 (5.77%) were suspected and 219 (79.06%) were seronegative. Existing seropositive and suspi-cious samples were subjected to PRNT. Eleven (26.19%) of the 42 seropositive samples were identified to carry specific West Nile virus antibodies. None of the suspicious specimens had PRNT seropositivy. Eleven (3.97%) of 277 breeding horses were identified with specific West Nile virus antibodies. No viral RNA could be detected by Real Time Revers Transcriptase-Polymerase Chain Reaction (rtRT-PCR) in 42 samples seropositive by BNV Ab ELISA test