Molecular and serological investigation of cat viral infectious diseases
in China from 2016 to 2019
Abstract
In order to analyze the prevalence of cat viral diseases in China,
including feline parvovirus (FPV), feline calicivirus (FCV), feline
herpesvirus-1 (FHV-1), feline leukemia virus (FeLV), feline
immunodeficiency virus (FIV) and feline infectious peritonitis virus
(FIPV), a total of 1,326 samples of cats from 16 cities were
investigated from 2016 to 2019. Collectively, 1,060 (79.9%) cats were
tested positive for at least one virus in nucleotide detection, the
positive rates of cat exposure to FeLV, FPV, FHV-1, FCV, FIV and FIPV
were 59.6%, 19.2%, 16.3%, 14.2%, 1.5% and 0.5%, respectively. The
prevalence of FHV-1 and FPV were dominant in winter and spring. Cats
from north China showed a higher positive rate of viral infection than
that of cats from south China. The virus infection is not highly
correlated with age, except that FPV is prone to occur within the age of
12 months. In the serological survey, the seroprevalences of 267
vaccinated cats to FPV, FCV, FHV-1 were 83.9%, 58.3% and 44.0%,
respectively. Meanwhile, the seroprevalences of 39 unvaccinated cats to
FPV, FCV, FHV-1 were 76.9% (30/39), 82.4% (28/34) and 58.6% (17/29),
respectively. This study demonstrated that a high prevalence of the six
viral diseases in China, and the insufficient serological potency of FCV
and FHV reminds the urgency for more effective vaccines.