Institute of Diagnostic Virology, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Insel Riems, Germany.
Institute of Infectology, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Insel Riems, Germany.
Transbound Emerg Dis. 2018 Oct;65(5):1318-1328. doi: 10.1111/tbed.12881. Epub 2018 Apr 20.
This study targeted the assessment of a potential African swine fever virus (ASFV) carrier state of 30 pigs in total which were allowed to recover from infection with ASFV "Netherlands'86" prior exposure to six healthy sentinel pigs for more than 2 months. Throughout the whole trial, blood and swab samples were subjected to routine virological and serological investigations. At the end of the trial, necropsy of all animals was performed and viral persistence and distribution were assessed. Upon infection, a wide range of clinical and pathomorphological signs were observed. After an initial acute phase in all experimentally inoculated pigs, 66.6% recovered completely and seroconverted. However, viral genome was detectable in blood samples for up to 91 days. Lethal outcomes were observed in 33.3% of the pigs with both acute and prolonged courses. No ASFV transmission occurred over the whole in-contact phase from survivors to sentinels. Similarly, infectious ASFV was not detected in any of the tissue samples from ASFV convalescent and in-contact pigs. These findings indicate that the suggested role of ASFV survivors is overestimated and has to be reconsidered thoroughly for future risk assessments.
本研究旨在评估 30 头猪在感染 ASFV“荷兰 86 号”后恢复期间作为潜在的非洲猪瘟病毒（ASFV）携带者的可能性，这些猪在接触 6 头健康哨兵猪超过 2 个月后才被允许接触。在整个试验过程中，对血液和拭子样本进行了常规病毒学和血清学调查。试验结束时，对所有动物进行了剖检，并评估了病毒的持续存在和分布情况。感染后，观察到广泛的临床和病理形态学症状。在所有接种的实验猪中，最初经历了急性阶段后，66.6%的猪完全恢复并产生了抗体。然而，病毒基因组在血液样本中可检测到长达 91 天。33.3%的猪出现急性和延长性病程，导致死亡。在整个接触阶段，从幸存者到哨兵猪，均未发生 ASFV 传播。同样，在康复和接触猪的任何组织样本中均未检测到传染性 ASFV。这些发现表明，对 ASFV 幸存者的作用的假设被高估了，需要在未来的风险评估中进行彻底的重新考虑。
