High prevalence of porcine Hokovirus in Germanwild boar populations.

Porcine Hokovirus (PHoV) was recently discovered in Hong Kong. This new Parvovirus of pigs is closely related to the human Parvoviruses 4 and 5 (PARV4/5) and bovine Hokovirus (BHoV). So far, nothing is known about the presence and prevalence of PHoV in regions of the world other than Hong Kong. A study was initiated to investigate PHoV in German wild boars from five different geographical regions, using a newly established quantitative real-time PCR assay. Analysis of collected liver and serum samples revealed high overall prevalence (32.7%; 51/156) of PHoV in wild boars. The prevalence differed between the regions and increased with age. Two near full-length genomes and a large fragment for three additional isolates from different regions were sequenced and used for phylogenetic analysis. The German PHoV sequences from wild boars showed a close relationship with sequences of isolates from Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]