Egypt is one of the countries threaten with foot and mouth disease virus (FMDV) that attacks animals
every year. The introduction of new topotypes/lineages of the existing FMD viruses represents a constant risk for cattle
production. Serotype A is one of FMDV that is already existing and incriminated lastly in serval problems in cattle
population. So, this study aimed at molecular characterization of serotype A FMDV that has been involved in the
latest FMD outbreaks in Egypt. Thirty-six samples (26 blood and 10 oral epithelial tissue samples) were obtained from
suspected cattle in three Egyptian governorates during 2019-2020. The samples were screened for FMDV by means
of real‑time RT‑PCR that showed nearly 86% (n=31) of the examined samples to be FMDV positive. Virus isolation
was carried out on ten of the FMDV positive samples that were selected according to their cycle threshold (Ct
) values.
Moreover, the serotype A amplicons were subjected to sequencing of the VP1 gene. Through phylogenic analysis of
three FMDV serotype A isolates, it has been deduced that two isolates were clustered to Asian Iran-05 topotype
with close similarities (99.42-99.57%) to the local vaccine strain, while the other one belonged to African topotype
genotype IV (GIV) and was genetically different from the local vaccine strain with 85.65% identity. These findings
support the suggestion of adding the African topotype GIV as a supplementary vaccine to the currently used one.