Experimental Infections of Pigs with African Swine Fever Virus (Genotype II); Studies in Young Animals and Pregnant Sows

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

Documents

  • Fulltext

    Final published version, 1.02 MB, PDF document

  • Louise Lohse
  • Jens Nielsen
  • Åse Uttenthal
  • Ann Sofie Olesen
  • Bertel Strandbygaard
  • Thomas Bruun Rasmussen
  • Belsham, Graham John
  • Anette Bøtner

African swine fever is an important viral disease of wild and domestic pigs. To gain further knowledge of the properties of the currently circulating African swine fever virus (ASFV), experimental infections of young pigs (approximately 8 weeks of age) and pregnant sows (infected at about 100 days of gestation) with the genotype II ASFV Georgia/2007 were performed. The inoculated young pigs developed typical clinical signs of the disease and the infection was transmitted (usually within 3–4 days) to all of the “in contact” animals that shared the same pen. Furthermore, typical pathogical lesions for ASFV infection were found at necropsy. Inoculation of pregnant sows with the same virus also produced rapid onset of disease from post-infection day three; two of the three sows died suddenly on post-infection day five, while the third was euthanized on the same day for animal welfare reasons. Following necropsy, the presence of ASFV DNA was detected in tonsils, spleen and lymph nodes of some of the fetuses, but the levels of viral DNA were much lower than in these tissues from the sows. Thus, only limited transplacental transmission occurred during the course of this experiment. These studies contribute towards further understanding about the spread of this important viral disease in domestic pigs.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1387
JournalViruses
Volume14
Issue number7
ISSN1999-4915
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

    Research areas

  • African swine fever, domestic pigs, experimental infection, virus transmission

ID: 319165235