Pestiviruses are globally distributed and cause substantial economic losses to the cattle industry. In Brazil, the country with the world’s largest cattle population, pestivirus infections are well described in some regions, such as in the south, where a high frequency of BVDV-2 is described and contrasts with the high prevalence of HoBi-like pestivirus (HoBiPeV) in the northeast. However, there is a lack of information about pestiviruses in the Amazon Region, in northern Brazil, with a cattle population estimated at 55.7 million head, which has a significant impact on the international livestock market. Therefore, this study investigated the seroprevalence and genetic variability of ruminant pestiviruses in 944 bovine serum samples from four states in northern Brazil: Pará (PA), Amapá (AP), Roraima (RR), and Amazonas (AM). Our results showed that 45.4% of the samples were seropositive (19.8% for BVDV-1, 14.1% for BVDV-2, and 20.9% for HoBiPeV). All samples were tested by RT–qPCR, and three were positive and classified as HoBiPeV in a phylogenetic analysis. These serological and molecular results contrast with those from other regions of the world, suggesting that the northern Brazilian states have a high prevalence of all bovine pestiviruses including HoBiPeV.
Since 1998 the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, has been free of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) with yearly mandatory vaccination, until the 2000 and 2001 reintroductions. This study gathers data from both outbreaks including official veterinary state service archives and field investigation reports to quantify epidemiological parameters such as epidemic duration, number of secondary infected farms and animals, and estimate the epidemic rate of growth. We apply a Bayesian latent variable approach to estimate the time-varying reproduction number and calculate new confirmed cases by infection date. Additionally, we utilized between-farm animal movements to reconstruct possible FMD transmission and characteristics of spread over the current at-risk population, by incorporating bovine movement data from 2018 to 2020 as standard to benchmark infected network parameters. The results were consistent with the reports generated by the official investigation of the outbreaks and the models and results presented in this study may be useful for assessing the transmission dynamics and support control measures in the future.
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