Inflammation in meninges and/or brain is regularly noticed in red foxes and other wild
carnivores during rabies control programs. Despite negative rabies virus (RABV) results,
the etiologies of these cases remain unknown. Thus, the aim of this study was to provide
an overview of the occurrence of pathogens that may cause diseases in the brains of
wild carnivores and pose a risk to humans and other animals. In addition to RABV and
canine distemper virus (CDV), a variety of pathogens, including members of Flaviviridae,
Bornaviridae, Herpesviridae, Circoviridae, as well as bacteria and parasites can also
cause brain lesions. In 2016 and 2017, brain samples of 1,124 wild carnivores were
examined by direct fluorescent antibody test for RABV as well as (reverse-transcriptase)
quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the presence of CDV as part of a
monitoring program in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Here, we applied similar methods to
specifically detect suid herpesvirus 1 (SuHV-1), West Nile virus (WNV), Borna disease
virus 1 (BoDV-1), canid alphaherpesvirus 1 (CaHV-1), canine parvovirus type 2 (CPV-2),
fox circovirus (FoxCV), and Neospora caninum (N. caninum). Further, bacteriogical
examination for the existence of Listeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes) and
immunohistochemistry of selected cases to detect Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) antigen
were performed. Of all pathogens studied, CDV was found most frequently (31.05%),
followed by FoxCV (6.80%), CPV-2 (6.41%), T. gondii (4/15; 26.67%), nematode larvae
(1.51%), L. monocytogenes (0.3%), and various other bacterial pathogens (1.42%). In 68
of these cases (6.05%), multiple pathogen combinations were present simultaneously.
However, RABV, WNV, BoDV-1, SuHV-1, CaHV-1, and N. caninum were not detected.
The majority of the histopathological changes in 440 animals were inflammation
(320/440; 72.73%), predominantly non-suppurative in character (280/320; 87.50%), and
in many cases in combination with gliosis, satellitosis, neuronophagia, neuronal necrosis,
and/or vacuolization/demyelination, or in single cases with malacia. Thus, it could be
shown that wild carnivores in Saxony-Anhalt are carriers mainly for CDV and sometimes
also for other, partly zoonotic pathogens. Therefore, the existing monitoring program
should be expanded to assess the spill-over risk from wild carnivores to humans and
other animals and to demonstrate the role of wild carnivores in the epidemiology of these
zoonotic pathogens.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:87400 |
| Date | 12 October 2023 |
| Creators | Höche, Jennifer, House, Robert Valerio, Heinrich, Anja, Schliephake, Annette, Albrecht, Kerstin, Pfeffer, Martin, Ellenberger, Christin |
| Publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 10.3389/fvets.2022.826355 |
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