Identification of enteric viruses circulating in a dog population with low vaccine coverage

Although the use of vaccines has controlled enteric diseases in dogs in many developedcountries, vaccine coverage is still under optimal situation in Brazil. There is a large popula-tion of nonimmunized dogs and few studies about the identification of the viruses associatedwith diarrhea. To address this situation, stool samples from 325 dogs were analyzed bypolymerase chain reaction for the detection of common enteric viruses such as Canine ade-novirus (CAdV), Canine coronavirus (CCoV), Canine distemper virus (CDV), Canine rotavirus (CRV)and Carnivorous protoparvovirus 1 (canine parvovirus 2; CPV-2). At least one of these specieswas detected in 56.6% (184/325) of the samples. The viruses detected most frequently ineither diarrheic or nondiarrheic dog feces were CPV-2 (54.3% of the positive samples), CDV(45.1%) and CCoV (30.4%), followed by CRV (8.2%) and CAdV (4.9%). Only one agent wasdetected in the majority of the positive samples (63%), but co-infections were present in 37%of the positive samples and mainly included CDV and CPV-2. The data presented herein canimprove the clinical knowledge in regions with low vaccine coverage and highlight the needto improve the methods used to control these infectious diseases in domestic dogs