Isolation of foot-and-mouth disease virus from Japanese Black cattle in Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan, 2000

Four outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) occurred from March to May 2000 in Miyazaki and Hokkaido Prefectures, Japan. FMD virus isolation was achieved by sampling probang materials from Japanese Black cattle in the third case found in Miyazaki Prefecture. The probang materials were inoculated to bovine kidney (BK) and bovine thyroid cell cultures. CPE was observed in the BK at two days post-inoculation. Specific amplified DNA segments for FMD virus (FMDV) were detected by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction in the culture fluid. The FMDV was identified as type O by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for antigen detection and the nucleotide sequence encoding the VP1 was determined. This FMDV is a strain that is widespread in Pan-Asia and was designated as O/JPN/2000 by the World Reference Laboratory of the Pirbright Institute, England. This report marks the first isolation of FMDV in Japan.