Status of Bluetongue disease in India: A Meta-analysis perspective

India is an agrarian country and agriculture is the backbone of the Indian economy. Bluetongue disease is endemic in the sheep and goat population of India. After a systematic literature search and by following PRISMA and MOOSE protocol, 73 studies fulfilled the objective of the study. Meta-analysis and sub-group meta- analysis for species, serological test, and geographical region were conducted in R software using meta and metafor packages. The overall prevalence estimate was 38% (95% CI:35% - 42%) for a sample size of 38367. Species-wise analysis revealed that prevalence in goats was 45% (95% CI: 44% - 46%), sheep 44% (95% CI: 43% - 45%), cattle 40% (95% CI: 39% - 42%), buffalo 41% (95% CI: 39%- 43%), camel 24% (95% CI: 22% - 26%) and in mithun was 73% (95% CI: 65% - 79%). The prevalence was estimated highest with C-ELISA (48%, 95% CI: 48% - 49%) followed by I-ELISA (43%, 95% CI:42% - 44%), S-ELISA (40%, 95% CI:35% - 45%), ELISA (37%, 95% CI: 28% - 48%), CCIE (29%, 95% CI: 24% - 34%), AGPT (23%, 95% CI: 22% - 25%) and Dot-ELISA (6%, 95% CI: 4% - 7%). Among different geographical zones, the highest prevalence was noticed in North East (50%, 95% CI: 48% - 52%).