A review of viral diseases of the European wild boar: Effects of population dynamics and reservoir rôle

Abstract

There has been a worldwide increase in the number and geographical spread of wild boar populations in recent decades leading to an increase in both the circulation of disease agents and greater contact with domestic animals and humans. Diseases affect the population dynamics of wildlife but the effects of most viral diseases on the European wild boar are largely unknown. Many viral diseases present in domestic pig populations are also present in wild boars where they can provide a disease reservoir, as is clearly the case with classical swine fever, but little is known about other viral diseases such as porcine circovirus diseases or hepatitis E. This review considers the current scientific knowledge of the effects of viral diseases on wild boar populations and their rôle as potential disease reservoirs. The focus is on those viral diseases of domestic swine and wild boars that are included as notifiable by the Office International des Epizooties (OIE).

African swine fever: how can global spread be prevented?

“…Evidence of ASFV infection in wild boar was reported from the Iberian Peninsula (Wilkinson 1984;Arias & Sanchez-Vizcaino 2002), Sardinia (McVicar et al 1981;Laddomada et al 1994;Mannelli et al 1997) and most recently in Russia (OIE WAHID 2009). In areas where domestic pigs were free of the disease, very low prevalence or absence of seropositive wild boars was reported (Perez et al 1998) suggesting limited persistence of the virus in wild boar populations without contact with infected domestic pigs (Laddomada et al 1994;Perez et al 1998;Ruiz-Fons et al 2008). Given the recent development in the Caucasus region and the current situation in Sardinia further research is needed to elucidate the competence of wild boar to act as infection reservoir, and needs to consider potential differences in virulence of ASFV strains.…”

Spatial and Temporal Evolution of Bluetongue Virus in Wild Ruminants, Spain

“…The risk of wildlife acting as BTV reservoirs and relevant epidemiologic factors need to be explored (13). The situation in Spain, with well-distributed wild ruminant species and the presence of BTV vectors and BTV-4, led us to study the status of these ruminants in the epidemiology of BTV.…”

Exposure of extensively farmed wild boars (Sus scrofa scrofa) to selected pig pathogens in Greece

“…Night hunting was banned in Greece and the entrance of wild boar from neighboring Turkey, due to excessive hunting pressure, has led to an increase in wild boar population at least in Northern Greece (Beskardes et al 2010). Furthermore, wild boars share habitats with free-ranging pigs, which promotes hybridization and the so-called feral pigs, feral swine or feral hogs (Ruiz-Fons et al 2008). The cross-breeding between wild boar and free-ranging pigs or local domestic breeds (mainly Greek black pig) is a common practice in many wild boar farms in Greece (Papatsiros et al 2012) and hybrids between wild boar (Sus scrofa scrofa) and domestic pigs (Sus scrofa f. domestica) have been genetically identified (Koutsogiannouli et al 2010).…”