Seasonal recurrence of cowpox virus outbreaks in captive cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus)

Stagegaard, Julia; Kurth, Andreas; Stern, Daniel; Dabrowski, Piotr Wojciech; Pocknell, Ann; Nitsche, Andreas; Schrick, Livia

Even though OPV have a high tenacity in the environment [31] , it is unlikely that the three clusters in enclosure A1 were caused by identical virus material from the environment. All five isolates varied to some extent in the genome sequence (Fig 3) , indicating that they evolved and were introduced multiple times from their reservoir hosts. Also, the two CPXV that were found in the farm and park within four weeks (clusters 3 and 4) clearly differ in their sequences, indicating the co-circulation of multiple viruses. Furthermore, we conclude that the virus was most likely not keeper transmitted. While the sequences from the five cheetah clusters do not cluster as closely as other sequences coming from a single outbreak (see Fig 3) , this is not surprising given that the examined events span several years. The low intra-clade distances and the comparatively large distance to any sequence from outside the cheetah clade are also consistent with the hypothesis of CPXV circulating and evolving in the wildlife in the region and sometimes becoming visible due to transmission to cheetahs in the zoo.