Prevalence of feline coronavirus antibodies in cats in Bursa province, Turkey, by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay

Abstract

Feline sera from Bursa province (Turkey) were assayed for coronavirus antibody using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The study was performed on 100 sera collected from cats belonging to catteries or community shelters and to households. The serum samples were initially tested with the virus neutralisation (VN) test and the results were then compared with the ELISA. The VN yielded 79 negative and 21 positive sera but the ELISA confirmed only 74 as negative. The ELISA-negative sera were also found to be free of feline coronoviruses-specific antibodies by Western blotting. Using the VN as the gold standard test, ELISA had a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 93.6%, with an overall agreement of 95%. The Kappa (kappa) test indicated high association between the two tests (kappa=0.86, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.743-0.980). The positive predictive value (PPV) was 0.8, and the negative predictive value (NPV) was 0.93. The prevalence of FCoV II antibodies in the sampled population based on the gold standard was 62% (95% CI 0.44-0.77) among multi-cat environments, and 4% (95% CI 0.01-0.11) among single cat households.

A retrospective clinical and epidemiological study on feline coronavirus (FCoV) in cats in Istanbul, Turkey

“…Moreover, FCoV seroprevalence increased in 2014 compared to previous years and this may suggest that FCoV infections are an increasing health problem in cats in Istanbul. High FCoV seroprevalence (up to 84%) has been reported in many countries (Sparkes et al, 1992;Holst et al, 2006;Pratelli, 2008;Pratelli et al, 2009;Sabshin et al, 2012;Taharaguchi et al, 2012). In contrast, FCoV seroprevalence was comparatively low in chronically ill (19.3%) and even lower in healthy cats (10.1%) in Korea (Dong-Jun et al, 2011).…”

Diagnostic Value of Detecting Feline Coronavirus RNA and Spike Gene Mutations in Cerebrospinal Fluid to Confirm Feline Infectious Peritonitis

“…Cats might not have been infected with FCoV, as many control cats originated from single-cat households. In these, prevalence of FCoV infection is only 10–50%, in contrast to 80–100% in cats from catteries or other multi-cat households [ 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 ]. Another possible explanation for the lack of FCoV RNA in the CSF of a relevant number of control cats could be an intact BBB, which prevented viral leakage from the blood in the control cats.…”

Prevalence of coronavirus

“…1 Focusing on another Asian country, the reported prevalence in Turkey was about 60%. 2 The data are interesting; the more common infection rate might be due to the tropical nature of Malaysia. However, the data might have low clinical implications due to the small numbers of subjects and differences in diagnostic techniques.…”