Prevalence and diagnosis of canine parvovirus

A total of 238 clinical samples from affected dogs including faecal, urine and necropsied tissue samples were collected from different parts of Himachal Pradesh. The DNA of 238 samples were initially extracted and subjected to PCR amplification using primer pairs CPV-2, CPV-2ab, CPV-2b and CPV-2c targeting VP2 gene. All the samples were initially screened for HA activity using 1% washed pig erythrocytes. Samples showing positive HA activity were then serologically tested by HI and Dot ELISA using hyper- immune sera raised in rabbits. A total of 109 samples out of 238 (45.8 %) were found positive for CPV on PCR. None of sample was found positive for original CPV-2 strain, CPV-2a and CPV-2c strains out of the 238 samples processed. All the 109 positive samples were found to be CPV-2b antigenic variant. In HA test, 89 out of 238 (37.39 %) samples showed positive HA titres ranging from 1:2 to 1:2048. that were then confirmed using HI test with similar results. However, 91 out of 238 (38.23 %) samples showed positive results in Dot ELISA with formation of distinct brown-coloured spots on nitrocellulose membrane.