Clinical Presentation and Antiviral Therapy for Poxvirus Infection in Pudu (Pudu Puda)

Abstract

A severe poxvirus infection occurred in three pudu (Pudu puda), resulting in two fatalities. Cutaneous ulcers with mucopurulent exudate were present around the eyes and nose, at the lip margins, coronary bands, and teats. Mucosal ulcers were present in the oral cavity, esophagus, and forestomachs. In the two fatalities, a secondary disseminated fungal infection also occurred. Affected animals were leukopenic, hypocalcemic, and hyperphosphatemic and had elevated serum alkaline phosphatase, alanine aminotransferase, and aspartate aminotransferase levels. Electron microscopic examination of affected skin confirmed the presence of a poxvirus. Neutralizing antibody titers to this virus were present in the two pudu tested. One case was treated with cidofovir, 5 mg/kg i.v. q7d for four treatments. Complete recovery occurred in the treated animal. This is the second report of poxvirus infection in pudu and the first report describing clinical presentation, presence of secondary disseminated fungal infection, and successful treatment.

Epitheliotropic Infections in Wildlife Ruminants From the Central Alps and Stelvio National Park

“…Thus, only in a small number of cases, likely in association with other stress factors and/or infectious synergic agents, the PVNZ infections of the mucosal epithelium cause a serious debilitation to the affected animals with reduced ability to feed and death as might have happened to the red deer found dead in our study Persistent infections could allow periodical shedding and clinical manifestations that facilitate the virus survival and spread under favorable conditions (11). Poxvirus-borne life-threatening illnesses, involving the upper alimentary tract occurring in a proportion of affected young and adult deer had been attributed to an immunocompromised state (4). In one of the PVNZ pathological samples (1126C) it was possible to demonstrate also the genome of a papillomavirus and the genetic characterization showed a CePV1v co-infection.…”

“…The viruses belonging to the genus Deerpoxvirus (DPV) are responsible for non-parapoxviruslike infections in the members of two subfamilies of cervids, American deer (Odocoileinae) and reindeer (Rangiferinae). These viruses, resembling orthopoxviruses in shape, have been reported in North America in wild mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) in Wyoming (2), black-tailed deer (O. h. columbianus) (3) and pudu (Pudu puda) (4) in California, in wild cervid species in the Northwest Pacific (5), in farmed white-tailed deer in Mississipi (6) and in a goitered gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa) (7). The first genome sequence of Mule Deerpoxvirus (MDPV), from a farmed white-tailed deer fawn in Florida, has been recently published by Sayler et al (8).…”