In Egypt, the poultry industry is plagued by the significant economic losses caused by infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV). In the present study, a total of 30 diseased commercial chicken flocks aged 23–41 days old in three Egyptian governorates (Fayoum, Beni-Suef, and Minya) had symptoms consistent with infectious bursal disease (IBDV) were examined. The collected bursal samples (n=30, 10 pooled bursae for each flock) were screened by RT-PCR to amplify the IBDV VP2 gene. Results revealed that 20 out of 30 samples were positive, as indicated by the amplification of 620 bp of the VP2 gene. The twenty positive samples were inoculated into specific pathogen-free embryonated chicken eggs (SPF-ECEs) via the chorioallantoic-membrane (CAM) route to isolate the suspected virus. Eight samples were successfully isolated and were subjected to partial sequence of VP2 (targeting the HVR). The nucleotide sequences and phylogenetic analysis revealed that the examined isolates exhibited amino acids A222, I256, I294, and S299, which are extremely conserved among very virulent (vv)IBDV. The amino acid sequence analysis of the eight isolates revealed a high degree of similarity (97-100%) in between and 90-100% similarity compared to other Egyptian vvIBDV strains. In contrast, lower similarity was observed with attenuated IBDV vaccine strains D78, Lukert, and Bursavac (91-93%, 91-93%, and 92-94%, respectively). In conclusion, this study underscores the importance of ongoing surveillance of the IBDV situation in the field, as well as the need for further research to investigate the efficacy of current vaccination strategies to curb IBDV infection
Key words: IBDV, Broiler chickens, Gumboro, VP2 gene, Egypt
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