Abstract

Abstract
Rift Valley Fever (RVF) is an infectious zoonotic disease infecting, mainly, domestic ruminants and causing significant economic and public health problems. RVF is a vector-borne disease transmitted by mosquitoes. In this work, we tried to seek any RFV circulation in Tunisia. Thus, we investigated 1,723 sera from abortion cases, collected in 2009 and in 2013-2015 from sheep, goats, cattle and dromedaries. All sera were assessed using enzyme linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) techniques. Eighty-seven sera were detected positive and 11 doubtful. All of them were investigated by the virus-neutralization technique which confirmed the positivity of three sera. This is the first case of confirmed RFV seropositivities in Tunisia. Such a result was expected considering climatic, entomologic and geographic location of the country. Our finding must be enhanced by further analyses to better understand RVF epidemiologic situation in order to implement risk-based surveillance programs and effective control strategies.

Key words: Key words: Rift Valley Fever, Tunisia, epidemiology, ELISA, virus-neutralization technique