First outbreak of Lumpy Skin disease in Catalonia, Spain, 2025-2026

Authors

Obregon-Gutierrez, P., Correa-Fiz, F., Fonseca-Rodriguez, O., Cortey, M., Cobos, A., Riera, C., Soler, M., Ribas, N., Domenes, F., Pailler-Garcia, L., Domingo, M., Majo, N., Vidal, E., Lorca-Oro, C.

Abstract

Lumpy skin disease (LSD) is an emerging cattle disease caused by lumpy skin disease virus (LSDV), with major impacts on the industry, being classified as a Category A disease. Although it was historically confined to Africa, LSD has expanded into the Middle East, Asia and Europe. Here, we report two LSDV genomes from the first outbreak detected in Catalonia, Spain, in October 2025. The genomes were assembled from high-throughput sequencing data generated from two homogenized skin nodules. Comparative phylogenetic analyses were performed using all available complete LSDV genomes and rpo30 gene sequences. These analyses placed the LSDV isolates detected in Catalonia within clade 1.2, closely related to the isolates recently reported in Sardinia, Italy. Our findings also support a connection between recent south-western Europe and central African strains, possibly through northern Africa, and highlight the need for more complete genomes to clarify the origin and connections among recent LSDV outbreaks.

Preprint server: bioRxiv
The authors list and abstract were imported from bioRxiv on 23 Jun 2026.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this preprint? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.