Seroprevalence of pestivirus in Eurasian tundra reindeer in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Russian Federation

Anna Omazic; Caroline Aurosell; Valery Fedorov; Åsa Hagström; Juha Kantanen; Mikael Leijon; Torill Mørk; Christine S Nordtun; Ingebjørg Helena Nymo; Skarphéðinn G Þórisson; Tiina Reilas; Ulrika Rockström; Javier Sánchez Romano; Rán Thorarinsdottir; Morten Tryland; Jonas Johansson Wensman; Ann Albihn

doi:10.1080/20008686.2019.1682223

Seroprevalence of pestivirus in Eurasian tundra reindeer in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Russian Federation

Infect Ecol Epidemiol. 2019 Oct 29;9(1):1682223. doi: 10.1080/20008686.2019.1682223. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Anna Omazic¹, Caroline Aurosell¹, Valery Fedorov², Åsa Hagström¹, Juha Kantanen³, Mikael Leijon¹, Torill Mørk⁴, Christine S Nordtun⁵, Ingebjørg Helena Nymo⁴, Skarphéðinn G Þórisson⁶, Tiina Reilas³, Ulrika Rockström⁷, Javier Sánchez Romano⁵, Rán Thorarinsdottir⁶, Morten Tryland⁵, Jonas Johansson Wensman⁸, Ann Albihn^{1

9}

Affiliations

¹ National Veterinary Institute, Uppsala, Sweden.
² Yakutian Research Institute of Agriculture, Yakutsk, Russia.
³ Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Jokioinen, Finland.
⁴ Section for Pathology, The Norwegian Veterinary Institute, Tromsø, Norway.
⁵ Department of Arctic and Marine Biology, Arctic Infection Biology, UiT- The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway.
⁶ East Iceland Nature Research Centre, Egilsstaðir, Iceland.
⁷ Farm and Animal Health, Uppsala, Sweden.
⁸ Department of Clinical Sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden.
⁹ Department of Biomedical Sciences and Veterinary Public Health, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden.

Abstract

Reindeer herding is of great importance for the indigenous people of the Fennoscandia peninsula and northern Russia. There are also free-ranging feral populations of reindeer in Finland, Iceland, Norway and Russian Federation. The genus Pestivirus contains several viral species that infect ungulates and often show capacity to transmit between different host species. Sera from 520 Eurasian tundra reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus) from Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Russian Federation were analysed and the prevalence of pestivirus-specific antibodies was determined. Seropositivity proportion was 48.5% for Sweden and 41.2% for Norway, but only 1.6% for Iceland and 2.5% for Finland. All Russian reindeer investigated were seronegative. Pan-pestivirus RT-PCR of seronegative animals (n = 156) from seropositive herds confirmed their negative status. These results indicate unexpectedly non-uniform circulation of an as yet uncharacterised pestivirus in Eurasian reindeer populations. The high seroprevalence in some regions warrants further studies of pestivirus infection dynamics, effects on reindeer health and population dynamics.

Keywords: BDV; BVDV; PCR; Rangifer; pestivirus; reindeer; serology.

Grants and funding

The present study was performed within the project: Climate-change effects on the epidemiology of infectious diseases and the impacts on Northern Societies (CLINF; www.clinf.org), which is funded by NordForsk [Grant no. 76413]. The sampling in Norway and Iceland was partly funded by FRAM - High North Research Centre for Climate and the Environment, through the Terrestrial Flagship Project: Health and infectious diseases in semi-domesticated reindeer in a changing climate [Grant no. 362256], and by a grant from the Reindeer Development Fund (Reindriftens utviklingsfond) through the project: Smittsom øyebetennelse;NordForsk, Norway [76413];NordForsk, Norway [76413];NordForsk, Norway [76413];NordForsk, Norway [76413];NordForsk, Norway [76413];FRAM, Norway [362256];FRAM, Norway [362256];NordForsk, Norway [76413];NordForsk, Norway [76413];FRAM, Norway [362256];NordForsk, Norway [76413];FRAM, Norway [362256];NordForsk, Norway [76413].