Infection of young foals with Equine Parvovirus-Hepatitis

One of the most convincing observations on the transmission of the Equine Parvovirus associated with Hepatitis (EqPV-H). Interesting is that none of the infected foals developed hepatitis.
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Infection of young foals with Equine Parvovirus-Hepatitis following a fatal non-biologic case of Theiler’s disease

Vet Microbiol. 2022 Sep 5;274:109557.

Authors
Toni Luise Meister 1 , Luis G Arroyo 2 , Rachel Shanahan 3 , Maria A Papapetrou 2 , Birthe Reinecke 4 , Yannick Brüggemann 1 , Daniel Todt 5 , Alexander Stang 1 , Murray Hazlett 6 , John D Baird 2 , Eike Steinmann 7
Affiliations

1 Department of Molecular and Medical Virology, Ruhr-University Bochum, 44801, Bochum, Germany.
2 Department of Clinical Studies, Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada.
3 Port Perry Veterinary Services, 1589 King Street, Prince Albert, Ontario L9L 1C2, Canada.
4 Institute for Experimental Virology, TWINCORE Centre for Experimental and Clinical Infection Research, a joint venture between the Medical School Hannover (MHH) and the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), 30625 Hannover, Germany.
5 Department of Molecular and Medical Virology, Ruhr-University Bochum, 44801, Bochum, Germany; European Virus Bioinformatics Center (EVBC), 07743 Jena, Germany.
6 Animal Health Laboratory, Laboratory Services, Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada.
7 Department of Molecular and Medical Virology, Ruhr-University Bochum, 44801, Bochum, Germany. Electronic address: eike.steinmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de.

Abstract

Theiler’s disease (TD) is a (sub-)acute hepatitis in adult horses and one of the most common causes of acute hepatic failure. Recent findings indicate that equine parvovirus hepatitis (EqPV-H) likely causes TD and that its transmission occurs via iatrogenic and/or natural routes. Following the death of an EqPV-H positive mare with TD, close-contact mares and foals in the same paddock were monitored to evaluate if there was any evidence of EqPV-H. For this purpose, the serum of close contact horses was examined 6 and 42 days after the mare’s death for the presence of EqPV-H DNA and changes in liver-associated serum biochemical parameters. The foals had higher EqPV-H viral loads than the mares. Apart from the mare that was euthanized, none of the horses included in this study showed signs of severe disease and nor did they have particularly elevated liver enzymes. Nucleotide sequence analysis revealed no major differences between the viral DNA detected in the serum of the dead mare and any of the in-contact horses. In conclusion, our data confirmed previous findings that horizontal transmission of EqPV-H may occur through close contact between horses.

Keywords: Equine Parvovirus-Hepatitis; Foals; Horizontal transmission; Horse; Liver failure; Theiler’s disease.