Prevalence of red panda amdoparvovirus infection in European zoos

Urška Kuhar; Oldřich Tomášek; Endre Sós; Jana Mede; Marjan Kastelic; Nuša Jež; Michaela Petrikova; Trine Hammer Jensen; Charles Everett Alex; Urška Jamnikar-Ciglenecki; Pavel Kvapil

doi:10.3389/fvets.2023.1276248

Prevalence of red panda amdoparvovirus infection in European zoos

Front Vet Sci. 2023 Oct 25:10:1276248. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2023.1276248. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Urška Kuhar¹, Oldřich Tomášek², Endre Sós^{3

4}, Jana Mede⁵, Marjan Kastelic⁵, Nuša Jež⁵, Michaela Petrikova⁶, Trine Hammer Jensen⁷, Charles Everett Alex^{8

9}, Urška Jamnikar-Ciglenecki¹⁰, Pavel Kvapil⁵

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Microbiology and Parasitology, Veterinary Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
² Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czechia.
³ Budapest Zoo and Botanical Garden/Budapest University of Veterinary Science, Budapest, Hungary.
⁴ University of Veterinary Medicine Budapest, Budapest, Hungary.
⁵ Veterinary Department of the Ljubljana Zoo, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
⁶ Avian and Exotic Animal Clinic, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Brno, Czechia.
⁷ Aalborg Zoo/Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark.
⁸ Department of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California-Davis, Davis, CA, United States.
⁹ Zoological Health Program, Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx Zoo, Bronx, NY, United States.
¹⁰ Institute of Food Safety, Feed, and Environment, Veterinary Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Abstract

Red panda amdoparvovirus (RPAV) was first described in captive red pandas (Ailurus fulgens) at a zoo in the United States in 2018. Subsequently, the prevalence of infection in zoos in the United States was reported to be 50%; however, RPAV prevalence outside the United States remains unstudied. This study was conducted to investigate the prevalence of RPAV in 134 red pandas from zoos in Europe. Overall, RPAV was detected with PCR in 21 of 62 zoos (33.9%), and the virus prevalence among individuals was estimated to be 24.2% (95% confidence interval, 17.4%-32.0%). Remarkably, adult females tested positive for RPAV more frequently than adult males. Zoos where RPAV was detected reported a significantly higher occurrence of alopecia (and clinical signs in general), whereas other commonly reported problems (fecal disorders and dental disease) showed no difference. A repeated pooled sampling of two positive individuals further showed that RPAV excretion in feces is intermittent, with the viral DNA being only detected on 8 out of 14 sampling days. The intermittent nature of excretion implies that RPAV prevalence may be higher than the estimated value.

Keywords: Ailurus fulgens; RPAV; amdoparvovirus; red panda; zoo.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This research was funded by the Slovenian Research Agency (research core funding no. P4-0092) and the Veterinary Department of the Ljubljana Zoo.