2015 ACVIM Forum Research Abstract Program

CROSS-SPECIES TRANSMISSION OF CANINE PARVOVI-RUS 2 TO HEALTHY SHELTER KITTENS. Christian Leutenegger 1 , Hongwei Liu 2 , Niels Pedersen 2 . 1 IDEXX Laboratories, Inc., West Sacramento, CA, USA, 2 Center for Companion Animal Health, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA A recent study of shelter cats in the UK provided strong evidence that healthy cats may shed strains of canine parvovirus type 2 (CPV2). The purpose of this study was to confirm these findings among healthy cats in shelters and in privately owned sick cats in the USA. We developed and validated a CPV2 realtime PCR assay to discriminate CPV2a, CPV2b, and CPV2c from feline panleukopenia virus (FPV). The specificity of the typing assays was confirmed by sequencing. The typing assays were then used to test CPV2 strains obtained from puppies with naturally acquired parvovirus infection and high fecal viral loads. All samples could be typed successfully and confirmed again by sequencing. After confirming the specificity of the strain typing assays in puppies, the same assays were used to test feces from healthy shelter kittens. In the group of the healthy shelter cats 58% shed parvovirus in their feces. Low levels of parvovirus shedding can be explained by chronic infection, gastrointestinal passage of environmental parvovirus or presence of vaccine virus. But 21% of these were shedding high parvovirus load indicating infection. Within the group of high shedders, 6% of kittens tested positive for canine parvovirus strain 2a.