Fatal swine acute diarrhoea syndrome caused by an HKU2-related coronavirus of bat origin

Abstract

Cross-species transmission of viruses from wildlife animal reservoirs poses a marked threat to human and animal health . Bats have been recognized as one of the most important reservoirs for emerging viruses and the transmission of a coronavirus that originated in bats to humans via intermediate hosts was responsible for the high-impact emerging zoonosis, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) . Here we provide virological, epidemiological, evolutionary and experimental evidence that a novel HKU2-related bat coronavirus, swine acute diarrhoea syndrome coronavirus (SADS-CoV), is the aetiological agent that was responsible for a large-scale outbreak of fatal disease in pigs in China that has caused the death of 24,693 piglets across four farms. Notably, the outbreak began in Guangdong province in the vicinity of the origin of the SARS pandemic. Furthermore, we identified SADS-related CoVs with 96-98% sequence identity in 9.8% (58 out of 591) of anal swabs collected from bats in Guangdong province during 2013-2016, predominantly in horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus spp.) that are known reservoirs of SARS-related CoVs. We found that there were striking similarities between the SADS and SARS outbreaks in geographical, temporal, ecological and aetiological settings. This study highlights the importance of identifying coronavirus diversity and distribution in bats to mitigate future outbreaks that could threaten livestock, public health and economic growth.

Origin, Genetic Diversity, and Evolutionary Dynamics of Novel Porcine Circovirus 3

“…Generally, bats are considered to be important reservoirs of novel emerging infectious diseases. Circovirus host jumps may be a risk for both the pig industry and public health, similar to the recently reported bat‐origin coronavirus detected in pigs 39, 40…”

Retrospective detection and phylogenetic analysis of swine acute diarrhoea syndrome coronavirus in pigs in southern China

“…Our results showed that the first SADS‐CoV positive sample was collected in August 2016 from the farm LS with a history of diarrhoea, as well as from other two farms TP and ZW, which indicates that SADS‐CoV has emerged in pigs in China at least since August 2016. And this time point is 5 months earlier than the first discovered time reported by our previous study (Zhou et al., ). As the same time, clinical signs of SADS‐CoV during the retrospective investigation included sever and acute vomiting and diarrhoea, leading to death in piglets that were less than 5 days of age with a mortality rate of around 50%.…”

“…Swine acute diarrhoea syndrome coronavirus (SADS‐CoV) is a newly discovered coronavirus which is an enveloped, positive and single‐stranded sense RNA virus with a genome size of approximately 27 kb (Gong et al., ; Pan et al., ; Zhou et al., ). SADS‐CoV belongs to the family Coronaviridae which contains four genera, Alphacoronavirus, Betacoronavirus, Gammacoronavirus, and Deltacoronavirus (Woo, Huang, Lau, & Yuen, ; Woo et al., ).…”

“…In January 2017, SADS‐CoV was detected in a swine farm and subsequently spread rapidly to three other farms in Guangdong Province and caused the fatal swine acute diarrhoea syndrome (SADS) characterized by the clinical signs with severe, acute diarrhoea and rapid weight loss of piglets. The symptoms of SADS‐CoV are similar to those that caused by other swine enteric coronaviruses such as PDCoV and PEDV, but SADS‐CoV is more harmful than these viruses because it has led to the death of almost 25,000 piglets in a short time and resulted in more significant economic losses (Dong et al., ; Sun, Wang, Wei, Chen, & Feng, ; Zhou et al., ). So, it is urgent to investigate the molecular epidemiology and transmission patterns of SADS‐CoV for establishing effective controls for this new coronavirus.…”

New frontiers in applied veterinary point‐of‐capture diagnostics: Toward early detection and control of zoonotic influenza

“…Additional studies will need to validate these platforms in differing geographic contexts and with influenza subtypes. Conceivably, they hold utility for rapidly identifying and controlling other priority transboundary animal disease pathogens, including viral etiologies of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS), classical swine fever (CSF), African swine fever (ASF), and emerging coronaviruses with a livestock transmission interface . The August 2018 notification by China to international authorities concerning the detection of African swine fever virus in domestic swine across multiple provinces presents an opportunity to trial such PoC diagnostic platforms at scale in a region that represents a substantial portion of the global swine production industry.…”