Infection of farmed pigs with porcine kobuviruses in Italy

• Published in: Archives of virology Vol. 160; no. 6; pp. 1533 - 1536
• Main Authors: Di Bartolo, Ilaria, Angeloni, Giorgia, Tofani, Silvia, Monini, Marina, Ruggeri, Franco Maria
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Vienna Springer Vienna 01-06-2015; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Animals; Animals, Suckling - virology; Asymptomatic; Base Sequence; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Brief Report; Diarrhea; Farms; Feces; Female; Genomes; Health care; Hogs; Infections; Infectious Diseases; Italy - epidemiology; Kobuvirus - genetics; Medical Microbiology; Molecular Sequence Data; Phylogenetics; Phylogeny; Picornaviridae Infections - epidemiology; Picornaviridae Infections - veterinary; Picornaviridae Infections - virology; Prevalence; RNA polymerase; Swine - virology; Swine Diseases - epidemiology; Swine Diseases - virology; Virology; Weaning; Italy; United States > US; Netherlands; Porcine; Italy; RT-PCR; Kobuvirus; Farm
• ISSN: 0304-8608; 1432-8798
• DOI: 10.1007/s00705-015-2397-z

Two-hundred eight swine fecal samples from six Italian farms were tested using a kobuvirus-specific RT-PCR with primers that amplify a region within the 3D gene. All farms were kobuvirus positive, with prevalence rates ranging between 24 % and 84 %. Overall, 57.5 % of asymptomatic pigs and 49.7 % of animals with diarrhea were positive for kobuvirus. Sequence analysis showed a different predominant strain circulating on each farm and indicated that the strains detected were related to both European and Asiatic strains. A possible pathogenic role of kobuvirus should be investigated further, since infections with this virus occur frequently in pigs of different ages.