Is canine coronavirus vaccine need to be added as core vaccine schedule in India

Canine coronaviral enteritis (CCE) is sporadic in India, many of the veterinarians follow the core vaccination regimen rather than non-core vaccination. This study is aimed to understand the prevalence of CCE and also to address the significance of including canine coronavirus vaccine in routine immunization of dogs in India. A total of 236 suspected faecal samples of dogs were collected from CCE suspected cases at Teaching Veterinary Hospital, Madras Veterinary College, Chennai and further subjected to Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR). None of the samples were found positive for CCE. These results signify that “canine coronavirus vaccine needs to be used as non-core vaccine on need basis” over driving the existing method of vaccination guidelines. This robust data on large volume of clinically suspected case results undermine the vaccination practices guidelines for dogs in India and also it provides the confidence ground in proposing effective disease prevention strategy against canine viral diseases.