الفهرس 
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Abstract
Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is a severe, acute, vesicular disease of cloven-hoofed animals including ruminants.FMD caused by RNA virus belong to Picornaviridae. Sevendistinct serotypes with many subserotypes of FMDV have been defined but onlythree types of FMDV are endemic in Egypt.
Molecular characterization of FMDV is not routine in Egypt, the serotype and the genetic relationships among the viruses is still under genetic stress. It is unclear whether the outbreaks in Egypt are due to a common source or there are new introductions.To investigate the spread of the disease in Egypt and to formulate effective control strategies, comprehensive understanding of the molecular epidemiology of the disease is required. This objective can be achieved byisolation and identification of serotype A from cattle and buffalos in Egypt and characterization of VP1 sequences of isolated viruses and comparing the coding sequences of isolates with other reference sequences in gene bank.
Maximumoutbreaks of FMD are observed in the autumn winterseason; hence most of the samples were collected in the autumn winter season from animal outbreaks present in Ismailia, Suez, Port Said and Sharkiagovernrates, Egypt. Eighty two tongue epithelium and vesicular fluids were collected from infected cattle and buffaloes for isolation and characterization of FMDV type A circulates in such area and 200 serum samples from apparently healthy non vaccinated animals in the nearby area were collected for screening of FMDV specific antibodies.
Immune status of collected serum samples were measured and evaluate the prevalence of serum neutralizing antibodies in serum of apparently healthy, non vaccinated animals present nearby FMD infected premises in the area of study.Results of serum neutralization test showed high prevalence of FMDV type A. The overall high prevalence is in buffaloes (62%) more than cattle (61%). The highest prevalence of FMDV type A showed in cattle and buffaloes present in Sharkia with a positivity percentage of 84 and 76 respectively. The lowest percentage of positivity present in serum of cattle and buffaloes in Port Said (44% and 48%).
Pooled tongue epithelium and vesicular fluid of each animal were examined for FMDV type A with RT-PCR. A total of 39 pooled samples (24 cattle and 15 buffaloes) out of total 82 showed positive reaction in RT-PCR with a percentage of 47.5%. Electrphoretic pattern of positive samples showed predicted white bands at 600bp when visualized under UV illumination. In Ismalia, 18 positive samples (13 cattle and 5 buffaloes) out of 35 animals (19 cattle and 16 buffaloes) with a total percentage of 51.4%, while in Suez province, it was found that 6 samples positive (5 cattle and 1 buffaloes) out of 15 animals (11 cattle and 4 buffaloes) with a total percentage of 40%. However in Port Said and sharkia province, the total numbers of positive samples are 5 and 10 out of 12 and 20 with a total percentage of 41.6 and 50 respectively.