Virus-specific antiviral treatment for controlling severe and fatal outbreaks of feline calicivirus infection.

Objective: To test the life-sparing and therapeutic effect of a parenterally administered virus-specific antiviral phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomer (PMO) for treating kittens during outbreaks of severe viral disease.

Animals: 112 kittens of various sex and age in 4 trials involving 3 outbreaks of naturally developing caliciviral disease.

Procedures: Each trial provided an opportunity to investigate the disease.

Serologic evidence of vesivirus-specific antibodies associated with abortion in horses.

Objective: To test horses for serologic evidence of an association between vesiviral antibodies and abortion.

Sample Population: Sera from 141 horses.

Procedures: 2 experiments were conducted.

Vesivirus viremia and seroprevalence in humans.

Pathogenic caliciviruses of the genus Vesivirus circulate in oceanic ecosystems and spread to and among terrestrial mammals. Isolation of Vesivirus from natural and laboratory infections in humans led to this investigation of Vesivirus seroprevalence and viremia. Sera from four groups were tested for antibodies to Vesivirus as follows: blood donors whose units were cleared for donation, blood donors whose units were not accepted for donation solely because of elevated blood liver alanine aminotransferase (ALT) concentrations, patients with clinical hepatitis of unknown but suspected infectious cause, and patients with clinical hepatitis of unknown cause but associated with blood transfusion or dialysis.

Prevalence of vesivirus in a laboratory-based set of serum samples obtained from dairy and beef cattle.

Objective: To examine sera obtained from dairy and beef cattle to detect antibodies against vesivirus and compare seroprevalence among cattle within the sample population.

Sample Population: Cattle sera from 8 western states and Maryland submitted to the Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory during 1999 and 2000.

Procedure: Sera were analyzed for vesivirus-specific antibodies by use of a recombinant vesivirus-San Miguel sea lion virus serotype 5-capsid peptide antigen in an indirect ELISA.

Infectious disease and the decline of Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus) in Alaska, USA: insights from serologic data.

Serologic data were examined to determine whether infectious disease may have played a role in the decline of Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus) in the Gulf of Alaska and Aleutian Islands, USA. Available published data, unpublished data, and recent collections (1997-2000) were compared and reviewed. Data were stratified by geography to compare the declining western Alaskan population in the Aleutian Islands through eastern Prince William Sound to the increasing population in southeastern Alaska.