Clinical presentations of psittacine beak and feather disease virus
(PBFDV) in Saudi Arabia are increasingly reported without laboratory
diagnostic evidence of virus circulation. The objectives of this study were
to investigate the presence of PBFDV in the Arabian Peninsula, and to
identify its possible molecular origins. Total DNA was extracted from
feather and blood samples from randomly selected 19 clinically-suspect
and 153 apparently-normal birds collected from 10 locally-bred and
imported Psittaciformes. Specimens were collected between 2008 and
2010. A replicase-associated protein (Rep) gene-specific PCR was used to
amplify a 603 bp region of the viral genome. PBFDV was detected in
31.6% of clinical cases (3.5% of samples). Two positive samples were
collected during 2008, three during 2009, and one during 2010. Positive
samples were from clinical cases. Negative samples tested positive for bird
rDNA. In positive cases, feathers not blood, consistently tested positive.
Four of the positive samples were collected from African grey parrots
(Psittacuserithacus), and two were from Indian ringnecks
(Psittaculaeupatria). Nucleotide-based phylogenetic analysis clustered one
African grey parrot PBFDV (Mira08) with South-East Asian and
Australian isolates indicating interspecies transmission.