Hepatitis viruses: prevalence of equine parvovirus‐hepatitis virus and equine hepacivirus in France and Australia

Background: Recent identification of viruses considered responsible for Theiler’s disease (acute hepatitis) in horses include equine parvovirus-hepatitis (EqPV-H) and the most likely several flaviviruses, hepacivirus (EqHV). Both these have now been detected North America, Asia, Europe. Objectives: To determine prevalence EqPV-H EqHV French Australian to analyse their respective phylogenetic relationships. Study design: Cross-sectional. Methods: Clinically documented sera from 188 259 collected between 2016-2019 were analysed. qPCRs validated according NF47-600 standard used detect sera. Sequencing analysis was performed on two NS1 fragments (516 nt 587 nt) one NS5B fragment (308 EqHV. A phylogenic network built using a Median Joining Network algorithm. Results: 1) EqPV-H: 12/259 (4.6%) 6/188 (3.2%) samples positive, respectively. Viral loads ranged 2.3e05 6.5e05 copies genome/ml. 2) EqHV: 5/259 (1.9%) 21/188 (11.2%) 6.1e04 1.4e08 (587 fragment) analyses showed that strains clustered, while overall distribution more heterogenous horses. Main limitations: The study population is by accessing laboratory submissions potentially biased. 516 could not be sequenced. Conclusions: This first report detection both horses. similar countries (p-value=0.6) although differences observed populations. also reported horses, with higher when compared