~ 519 ~ Journal of Entomology and Zoology Studies 2020; 8(2): 519-524 E-ISSN: 2320-7078 P-ISSN: 2349-6800 www.entomoljournal.com JEZS 2020; 8(2): 519-524 © 2020 JEZS Received: 03-01-2020 Accepted: 06-02-2020 Girish Bekkare Chandrashekaraiah Assistant Professor, Dept. of Veterinary Pathology, Veterinary College, Gokula, Vidyanagar, Hassan, Karnataka, India Sujatha Karamala Professor, Dept. of Veterinary Pathology, College of Veterinary Science, Sri Venkateshwara Veterinary University, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India Narayanaswamy Hogalagere Doddappaiah Vice Chancellor, Karnataka Veterinary Animal and Fisheries Sciences University, Nandinagar, Bidar, Karnataka, India Nalini Kumari Karumuri Associate Dean, College of Veterinary Science, Sri Venkateshwara Veterinary University, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India Vinod Kumar Nagaram Associate Professor, Dept. of Veterinary Microbiology, College of Veterinary Science, Sri Venkateshwara Veterinary University, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India Corresponding Author: Girish Bekkare Chandrashekaraiah Assistant Professor, Dept. of Veterinary Pathology, Veterinary College, Gokula, Vidyanagar, Hassan, Karnataka, India Pathology of chicken infectious anemia (CIA) with concurrent infections Girish Bekkare Chandrashekaraiah, Sujatha Karamala, Narayanaswamy Hogalagere Doddappaiah, Nalini Kumari Karumuri and Vinod Kumar Nagaram Abstract Poultry is constantly exposed to various immunosuppressive agents such as viruses, mycotoxins and environmental stress. Chicken Infectious Anemia (CIA) caused by a Circovirus a DNA virus is one of the very important viral diseases. Out of 100 clinically suspected outbreaks of immunosuppressive diseases in the current investigation, 11 outbreaks of CIA were diagnosed. The pathological parameters such as clinical signs, gross, microscopic and ultrastructural lesions were studied and characterized. All eleven cases were confirmed using PCR employing VP2 specific genes. Among the 11 confirmed outbreaks, based on necropsy findings, histopathology and bacterial culturing, 7 outbreaks showed concurrent infection with one or more secondary infections such as E.coli, Salmonellosis, Pasteurellosis, Gangrenous dermatitis, Cecal coccidiosis and aflatoxicosis. Keywords: Chicken infectious anemia, circovirus, concurrent infection, immunosuppression, pathology Introduction The poultry birds are constantly been exposed to various immunosuppressive agents such as viruses, Mycotoxins and environmental stress. This in turn is leading to secondary bacterial and viral infections, failure of vaccinations and severe economic losses. The important viral diseases involving immunosuppression include Marek’s Disease (MD), Chicken Infectious Anemia virus (CIA), Infectious Bursal Disease (IBD), Reovirus, Avian Leukocis, Reticuloendotheliosis, Newcastle disease and Avian Influenza virus (Umar et al., 2017; Gimeno and Schat 2018; Jordan et al., 2018) [33, 10, 18] . The non-viral of immunosuppressive agents include Mycoplasma, Ammonia, Mycotoxin and heat stress (Umar et al. 2017) [33] . Chicken Infectious Anemia (CIA) caused by a Circovirus was first identified in the year 1979 (Yuasa et al., 1979) [37] . as a new viral disease in young chickens. Circoviruses are small, non- enveloped icosahedral animal viruses characterized by circular single stranded DNA genomes. Their genomes were the smallest possessed by animal viruses (Crowther et al., 2003; Todd et al., 2003; Yao et al., 2019) [6, 32, 36] . The disease is known to have clinical picture of aplastic anaemia, generalized lymphoid atrophy, haemorrhages, increased mortality, and immunosuppression, drop in haematocrit values watery blood and morbidity and mortality of up to 100 and 60% respectively (Dhama et al., 2008; Schat and Santen 2008; Wani et al., 2013) [8, 30, 34] . With generalized lymphoid atrophy and immunosuppression, the disease is commonly complicated by secondary bacterial, viral, protozoan, mycotic infections (Bakshi et al., 2016) [2] or parasitic infestations. Pathologically CIA presents varying lesions such as yellow fatty bone marrow (Pope 1991; Dhama et al., 2008) [28, 8] , generalized lymphoid atrophy particularly, hyperemic thymus, swollen and mottled liver and congestion and hemorrhages in visceral organs (Kuscu and Gurel 2008) [20] and hemorrhages on subcutaneous tissue, breast and thigh muscles, heart, and proventricular mucosa as noted by Islam et al., (2013) [16] . Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been considered as the most useful tool for confirmatory diagnosis of many viral diseases including CIA. The highly specific and conserved genes of putative scaffold viral protein VP2 are generally employed using thermal cycler for this purpose (Islam et al., 2013) [16] . Therefore, the present investigation was carried out to investigate pathological features of CIA and generally accompanying concurrent infections in three southern states of India including Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh using various diagnostic tools such as gross,