Since 2013, highly virulent porcine epidemic diarrhea virus has caused considerable economic losses in the United States. To determine the relation of US strains to those recently causing disease in Germany, we compared genomes and found that the strain from Germany is closely related to variants in the United States. Porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) is an acute and highly contagious enteric disease of swine that results in severe enteritis, diarrhea, vomiting, and dehydration. Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV), the causative agent, is an enveloped, positive single-stranded RNA virus that belongs to the family Coronaviridae, genus Alphacoronavirus.
The disease was first recognized in Europe in 1971 and has thereafter caused high economic losses, particularly in Asia. In May 2013, a highly virulent PEDV variant emerged in the United States; explosive epidemics on swine farms affected pigs of all ages, resulting in a mortality rate of up to 95% among suckling pigs. Since then, outbreaks have occurred in 30 US states, causing very high economic losses, and the disease threatens to spread. The involved viruses cluster together with isolates from China from 2011 and 2012. Apart from these highly virulent strains, a PEDV variant from the United States (strain OH851) that affected sows instead of younger animals and caused milder disease was recently described.
The effect of PED in the United States has unsettled pig farmers and veterinarians worldwide; studies have been recently initiated to elucidate the situation in Europe. Despite the history of PED outbreaks in Europe, little is known about currently circulating virus strains and their effect; information about the phylogeny of recent strains and their relation to the outbreak strain in the United States is lacking.
Read more: http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/21/3/14-1165_article
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/ Emerging Infectious Diseases
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/21/3/14-1165_article Original web page at Emerging Infectious Diseases