Porcine circovirus

Porcine circoviruses (PCV) are small isometric nonenveloped DNA viruses. PCV was first identified by Tischer et al.,1986 as a contaminant of the pig kidney cell line, PK-15. Recent studies have shown this PK-15 cell contaminant PCV to be nonpathogenic and have detected a new antigenically and genomically different PCV (Allan et al., 1998, Meehan et al., 1998). The former is typed as PCV-1 and the latter PCV-2. PCV-2 has been found to be associated with a newly emerged post-weaning multisystemic wasting syndrome (PMWS) in swine herds Morozov et al., 1998.

There has been conflicting results in assessing the impact of PCV-2 in other species. Tischer et al., 1995 detected antibodies reacting to PCV in humans, mice and cattle. In contrast Allan et al., 2000 did not conclude the same result. Our current study is to determine the presence of antibodies to PCV-2 in humans exposed to swine.