Search

Congenital tremor (CT) caused by atypical porcine pestivirus (APPV) is a widespread disease in the swine industry. It is characterized by tremors in newborn piglets, but tremor description and association to other clinical signs are not well documented. This study's objectives were to characterize general and neurological clinical signs of APPV-induced CT and describe the progression and associations between the different signs. A cohort study was conducted including 37 pigs from litters with APPV-confirmed CT and 27 control pigs from healthy litters. All pigs were examined five times from birth to slaughter, including general and neurological parameters, and detailed tremor characterization. All levels of tremor, from grave severity to no tremor, were seen within litters. Tremor persisted throughout the suckling period for all, to weaner age for 60 % and to slaughter age for 40 %, unrelated to the initial degree of tremor (P = 0.9). Tremors were consistent with intention tremor and typically went from affecting the whole body to smaller regions as the pig aged, while frequency increased, and amplitude decreased. Tremor was associated with hypermetria (P = 0.0018) and a broad stance (P = 0.0198) during the suckling period. No other neurological signs, or splay leg, were observed. Severe tremor inhibited voluntary movement and was associated with reduced general condition (P = 0.0017), lower body condition score (P = 0.0044), more carpal lesions (P = 0.0163) and arthritis (P = 0.0198). Intention tremor and hypermetria corresponds to cerebellar diseases, although other typical signs of this were absent. Both the tremor observed, and the associated clinical manifestations appear to have severe animal welfare implications., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The Research Council of Norway, Animalia AS and the foundation Astri and Birger Torsted’s Grants played no role in planning and executing the study, nor in analysis and interpretation of data, nor in working on the manuscript. None of the authors has any financial or personal relationships that could inappropriately influence or bias the content of the paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

The capability of the recently emerged European strain of bluetongue virus serotype 8 (BTV-8) to cross the ruminant placenta has been established in experimental and field studies in both sheep and cattle. Seroprevalence rates in goats in North-Western Europe were high during the recent outbreak of BTV-8; however the capability of the virus to infect goats through the transplacental route has not been established. In the present study, four Saanen goats were inoculated with the European strain of BTV-8 at 62 days of gestation; this resulted in mild clinical signs, however gross lesions observed post mortem were more severe. Viral RNA was detected by real-time RT-PCR in blood and tissue samples from three fetuses harvested from two goats at 43 days post infection. Conventional RT-PCR and genome sequencing targeting viral segment 2 confirmed infection of brain tissue with BTV-8 in two of these fetuses. In total, five of six fetuses demonstrated lesions that may have been associated with transplacental infection with BTV. Infected fetuses did not demonstrate neurological lesions. Low viral RNA concentrations in fetal blood and tissue further suggest that the infected fetuses would probably not have been born viraemic. The implications of these findings with regards to the epidemiology and overwintering of BTV-8 in Europe remains unclear., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)