Isolation and identification of feline calicivirus and feline herpesvirus in Southern Brazil

Henzel, Andréia; Brum, Mário Celso Sperotto; Lautert, Cláudia; Martins, Mathias; Lovato, Luciane Teresinha; Weiblen, Rudi

The higher prevalence of FCV in comparison to FHV-1 isolated in the United Kingdom has been attributed to vaccines that began to be applied in the 1970s (12) . This vaccination likely contributed to the reduction of the number of cats in the Feline calicivirus and feline herpesvirus population excreting FHV-1 but did not significantly affect the number of cats excreting FCV (12) . The biology of the viruses is one characteristic that could contribute to this finding; FCV is an RNA virus with wide genetic and antigenic diversity, whereas FHV-1 is a stable DNA virus (25) . In this article, the number of vaccinated cats excreting FHV-1 was higher than that excreting FCV (Table 2 ). However, it should be noted that there was a unique situation in this study that could cause such results. Most of the isolated FHV-1 came from breeding catteries where an outbreak of respiratory disease was occurring. Thus, many of the FHV-1-isolated cats came from the same location; furthermore, most of the vaccinated cats used in this study came from the same cattery.