DISSEMINATION OF AUJESZKY’S DISEASE AMONG THE WILD BOARS IN UKRAINE IN 2010-2019
Introduction. Aujeszky’s disease (pseudorabies) - is an contagious and acute inflectional disease manifesting in the form of epizootics and sporadic cases. It causes significant economic losses to pig industry mostly in intensively developed pig breeding countries and fur farming. The disease is caused by the Aujeszky’s disease virus belong to the Herpesviridae family, a subfamily of Alphaherpesvirinae, of the Varicellovirus genus. Aujeszky’s disease outbreaks registered in most countries of the world, including all European Union, America, Africa and Asia, except Australia. The study of the pathogen spreading in the wild boars population in Ukraine is an urgent issue due to the low number of publications and aims to determine the role of these part of wild fauna in the infectious pathology of domestic pigs. The goal of the work was to carry out the retrospective epidemiological monitoring of Aujeszky’s disease among wild boars in Ukraine for the period of 2010-2019 years. Materials and methods. In order to determine the presence of specific humoral antibodies to Aujeszky’s disease virus, 7751 serum samples of wild pigs were taken after shooting wild pigs in the hunting seasons of 2010-2019 years from different hunting grounds of all regions of Ukraine. Visual presentation and statistical analysis were performed using Quantum GIS software version 3.16.0. Vector layers for the borders of the administrative borders of the regions of Ukraine were downloaded at https://www.diva-gis.org/Data. Studies on the presence of specific humoral antibodies against Aujeszky’s disease in the sera were performed using two commercial ELISA test kits: “ID Screen®Aujeszky gE Competition” (ID.vet, France) and Pseudorabies Virus gpI Antibody Test Kit (IDEXX, USA). Results of research and discussion. From 2014 to 2019 inclusive, 7751 serum samples of wild pigs were examined and 1593 positive responses were obtained for Aujeszky’s disease of wild pigs, representing 20.5% of the studied livestock of this species. Monitoring studies covered all regions of Ukraine. The seroprevalence rate of Aujeszky’s disease virus in wild boars in Ukraine during the analyzed period ranged from 31.3% in Kharkiv region to 4.3% in Kherson region. The highest seroprevalence rates of Aujeszky’s disease virus were found in six regions of Ukraine: Kharkiv oblast - 31.3%, Chernihiv - 30.1%, Zhytomyr - 30.0%, Sumy - 30.0%, Rivne - 29.2% and Ternopil - 28.3%. The lowest percentage of positively responding wild boar population was observed in Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Zaporizhzhia, Volyn, Mykolaiv, Crimea and Kherson oblasts: 10.9%, 9.5%, 7.7%, 7.4%, 7.3%, 7.0% and 4.3%, respectively, so in these areas the risk of infecting domestic pigs with Aujeszky’s disease virus from wild animals is much lower. Conclusions and prospects for further research. According to the results of monitoring of Aujeszky’s disease seroprevalence in wild boars in Ukraine its rate was 20.5%. It was found that the epizootic situation with Aujeszky’s disease in different regions of Ukraine differs and has some peculiarities, so the highest percentage of seropositive sera samples was detected in six regions: Kharkiv (31.3%), Chernihiv (30.1%), Zhytomyr (30.0%), Sumy (30.0%), Rivne (29.2%) and Ternopil (28.3%). In order to improve and optimize Aujeszky’s disease surveillance in pigs, it is recommended to further spatio-temporial study the disease spreading in Ukraine. The prospects for further research are to detect the new isolates of Aujeszky’s disease virus from wild boars and to conduct comparative studies of the peculiarities comparing to the domestic pigs isolates using virological and molecular genetic methods.