Lumpy Skin Disease: A Comprehensive Review on Virus Biology, Pathogenesis, and Sudden Global Emergence

The lumpy skin disease virus (LSDV) is an animal virus and a member of the Poxviridae family, which causes lumpy skin disease (LSD) in livestock animals like cows and buffaloes. LSD is an important transboundary disease of economic importance that was first discovered in 1929 in Zambia. LSDV has been prevalent in African countries, where several outbreaks have been reported previously. However, the virus has spread rapidly across the Middle East in the past two decades, reaching Russia and, recently, the Asian subcontinent. With the unprecedented cluster outbreaks reported across Asian countries, LSDV is certainly undergoing an epidemiological shift and expanding its geographical footprint globally. The recent LSD outbreaks have gained attention from global regulatory authorities and raised serious concerns among epidemiologists and veterinary researchers. Although there is no dearth of knowledge about LSDV, the disease lacks networked global surveillance and management, consequently making the current statistics deficient, fragmented, and unreliable. Hence, recurrent LSD outbreaks seriously threaten the global livestock industry. This review provides recent insights into LSDV by augmenting latest literature associated with its epidemiology, pathogenesis, transmission, currently-available intervention strategies, and economic implications on the dairy industries. The review also critically examines the changing epidemiological footprint of LSD and speculates on the possible reasons contributing to the ongoing multi-country LSD outbreak.