molecular prevalence of psittacine beak and feather disease (pbfd) in psittaciformes in fars, iran

Psittacine beak and feather disease virus (pbfdv) is a major viral pathogen that has a considerable impact on the development of beak and feather cells, resulting in abnormal feathers in bird species. this study aimed to investigate the prevalence of pbfd among individual birds of psittacine species referred to the laboratory from march 2023 to march 2024 in fars, iran. a total of 267 feather samples from different psittacine species, including nymphicus hollandicus, pyrrhura molinae, aratinga solstitialis, and luscinia megarhynchos, suspected to be pbfd with clinical signs of depression, anorexia, weakness, weight loss, diarrhea, feather dystrophy or beak deformity were subjected to dna extraction and polymerase chain reaction (pcr) to identify positive cases. the pbfdv detection rate across all species was 64.4% (95/267) using pcr. this finding highlights the high prevalence of pbfdv in the psittacine population in fars, iran and emphasizes the importance of further studies on various risk factors to control the disease.