Novel encephalomyelitis-associated astrovirus in a muskox (Ovibos moschatus): a surprise from the archives.

Background: The small, single-stranded positive-sense RNA astroviruses are mostly known to be enteric viruses. In recent years, though, different astroviruses were reported in association with neurological disease in various species. In cattle, two distinct neurotropic astrovirus genotype species were described in numerous cases of nonsuppurative encephalomyelitis, with one of these viruses also reported in similar circumstances in several sheep.