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Projects 14

Transmission of virus with pest insects in fur animals Short description: The purpose of the project is to study whether pests and ectoparasites can play a role in the trans-mission 41 of virus in mink farms. Detailed description: Background: Fleas, bacon beetles, flies etc. are commonly found in Danish mink farms and are often causing management problems. The fleas are also suspected to contribute to the spread of infectious diseases including plasmacytosis that is caused by Aleutian mink disese virus. At the DTU Natio-nal Veterinary Institute, it has been shown by PCR, that virus could be detected in fleas found on minks infected during the mink distemper virus epidemic in 2012-2013. Every year, attempts are made to eradicate plasmacytosis on mink farms in Northern Jutland. Some farms successfully get rid of the infection, whereas others seems to have a persistent cour-se of the infection with a massive spread of the disease within the farm among the individual ani-mals. In this way, 100 % of the animals can be infected with plamacytosis by August, even though the farm was cleaned and disinfected before the insertion of new breeding animals in February. Purpose: We wish to identify the pest problems by collecting concrete and updated information on the pre-sence of pests on the farms and examine the pests potential for transmission of plasmacytosis to minks. Furthermore, the study shall assess the importance of the fleas in correlation with transmis-sion of e.g. plasmacytosis in and between farms. The project: The transmission of plasmacytosis from pests to mink will be examined by collection fleas from selected mink farms, which have problems with fleas. The farms are selected from areas without plasmacytosis and from farms where the disease has been eradicated. The fleas collected from the areas free from plasmacytosis will be used in an experimental set-up, where transfer of the plasmacytosis virus is tested by means of an already tested transmission model for plasmacytosis. Approximately 100 fleas per animal will be used in the experimentel set-up, since some will die and because the minks peel off around 50% of them. A total of 8 minks will be infected with virus and 100 fleas from plasmacytosis free farms will be ad-ded to the animals when they are in the viremic phase. After about 14 days, fleas from the expe-rimentally infected minks will be transferred to 8 healthy minks. After 3 weeks these minks will be euthanized and tested for the presence of virus, in order to assess whether the fleas were able to transmit the virus causing plasmacytosis. Type of project: All. Enquiry: Senior adviser Charlotte Kristiane Hjulsager ckhj@vet.dtu.dk and Jesper Schak Krog jsck@vet. dtu.dk, Section for Diagnostics and Scientific Advice, and professor Lars Erik Larsen lael@vet.dtu. dk, Section for Virology; DTU Vet, Bülowsvej 27, 1870 Frederiksberg C. ECTS: Flexible


Projects 14
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