Food Animal Clinical Fellow Auburn University Large Animal Teaching Hospital Auburn, Alabama, United States
Abstract: Background. Wild pigs are a reservoir for numerous infectious diseases, many of which are zoonotic or of concern to other species. Bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) represents a major disease of economic concern for the livestock industry. Infections in swine typically do not result overt disease but may spill-back into cattle and other ruminants.
Hypothesis/Objective. The first objective was to determine the seroprevalence of BVDV in wild pigs by comparative serology. The second objective was to determine if state, age category, or sex significantly affected serum neutralization titers.
Animals. A total of 1,129 serum samples from wild pigs were collected across 17 states.
Methods. The samples underwent an initial virus neutralization (VN) assay at a dilution of 1:2 to screen for the presence of neutralizing antibodies or cytotoxicity. For positive samples, serial 2-fold dilutions starting at 1:2 with a final dilution of 1:65,536 was performed to determine end point titers. All samples underwent comparative serology to both BVDV-1b strain TGAC and BVDV-2a strain 125-c.
Results. Sixty-seven samples were excluded from analysis due to cytotoxicity. Thirty-nine samples were positive to BVDV-1b. Thirty-two samples were positive to BVDV-2a. Overall prevalence for BVDV-1b was 4.4% and 3.6% for BVDV-2a, respectively. The prevalence among the different states varied from 0-16.7%.
Conclusions and clinical importance. The seroprevalence was determined to be similar to previously reported results for wild pigs in other countries. Age category and sex did not significantly affect serum neutralization titers, nor were risk factors for having a positive antibody titer.
