Occurrence of Aleutian mink disease in selected national mink farms in light of serological and molecular investigations

Abstract

The aim of the study was to evaluate the prevalence of seroreagents to Aleutian mink disease virus (AMDV) in minks. Sera samples from 1233 minks were tested by CIEP. The antibodies against AMDV were not found in the mink farms which continued the AMD eradication program. In farms where the eradication program had not been implemented a bad epizootic situation was detected. The percentage of seroreagents between 33.3% and 97.8% was noticed: in females 33.3% to 91.8% whereas in males it ranged from 61.5% to 97.8%. The PCR method was used in 101 spleen samples to detect the presence of 11 new nucleotide sequences of VP2 gene, encoding the capsid protein of AMDV. All 11 amplicons are new variants of the VP2 AMDV gene isolated from minks in Poland.