Vol. 8, Special Issue 12, Part C (2024)

Infectious bursal disease is an economically important and highly contagious viral disease of poultry and turkey caused by a double stranded RNA virus belonging to family birnaviridae. Among the two serotypes, serotype 1 affects young chicks between the age group of 3-6 weeks and is associated with high mortality and morbidity. The disease is characterized by prostration, dehydration, watery diarrhea, ruffled feather and hemorrhages on thigh muscles. This virus causes severe degeneration of B lymphocytes associated with severe immunosuppression thus making chicks susceptible to other secondary bacterial infestations besides unresponsive to vaccinations. Despite following different vaccination strategies, it has been difficult to control this disease because of emergence of new virus strains as a result of genetic assortment. Therefore, prevention is important and vaccination has become the principal control measure of infectious bursal disease virus infection in chickens. Conventional live attenuated and killed vaccines are the most commonly used vaccines. With the advancement technology, new generation or genetically-engineered vaccines like deoxyribonucleic acid and subunit vaccines have been used. This review has been aimed at providing the information about the history of IBD, the available diagnostic techniques, prevention and control strategies and the challenges encountered in that process.