Atypical porcine pestivirus in wild boar (Sus scrofa), Spain

Atypical porcine pestivirus (APPV) is a recently discovered putative species of the Pestivirus genus (Family Flaviviridae). Its genome has approximately 25–28 per cent pairwise identity to known pestiviruses and a 68 per cent pairwise identity to a recently characterised Rhinolophus affinis pestivirus, placing both viruses in a highly divergent lineage of pestiviruses. Since APPV was described in the USA in 2015,1 it has been found in pigs from Austria,2 China,3 England,4 Germany,5 6 the Netherlands,7 Spain8 and Sweden.9 Some of these studies also demonstrated the relationship of APPV to pigs displaying congenital tremor (CT) type AII.4 5 7 10 Recently, APPV was detected in wild boars from Germany and the Republic of Serbia.11 Munoz-Gonzalez et al 8 showed that APPV was present at least since 1997 in pigs from north-eastern Spain. In the same Spanish region where this ‘atypical’ pestivirus appears to be widely distributed, the European wild boar population is increasing and reaching high densities, as it is occurring throughout the European Basin.12 As the epidemiological role of wild pig in some domestic pig viral diseases is well known,13 the aim of the present study was to evaluate the presence of the recently described APPV in a European wild boar population. Sera from 437 wild boars were included in the study. The samples were collected during the hunting season from 2012 to 2016 in the …