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

Infectious respiratory disease is a major clinical problem in feline medicine. Such infections are primarily caused by either one or both of two viruses: feline calicivirus (FCV) and feline herpesvirus type 1 (FHV-1) (11, 25) . These viruses have *Corresponding Author. Mailing address: Setor de Virologia, DMVP/CCR/UFSM, Av. Roraima, n° 1000, Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, 97105-900.; Tel/Fax.: [phone].; E-mail: FHV-1 is the agent of feline viral rhinotracheitis (FVR) (11, 8) . It is a DNA virus that is a member of the Varicellovirus genus in the Alphaherpesvirinae subfamily (11) . Only one serotype of this virus exists, and like other alphaherpesvirus, FHV-1 induces latency in nervous ganglions (11) . Thus, clinically recovered cats are carriers that undergo periodic episodes of virus reactivation, particularly after stress (11) . In both experimental and natural infections, symptoms include the following: depression, sneezing, inappetence, pyrexia and serous ocular and nasal discharges (11) . Cats of any age, sex or breed are susceptible, but a severe syndrome is usually restricted to kittens of up to six months of age (23) . It is estimated that more than 90% of the cats are seropositive to FHV; and that a minimum of eighty percent remains latently infected with 45% shedding the virus by all life long (18) .