Abstract
Cetacean morbillivirus (CeMV) has caused thousands of deaths in cetaceans worldwide. The first known outbreak happened in 1988 on the USA's Atlantic coast.1 Since then, different outbreaks have affected cetacean populations in the northern hemisphere, especially in the Mediterranean and on the Atlantic coast of the USA.2 In the Mediterranean Sea, two important outbreaks affected the striped dolphin (Stenella coeruleoalba) population; the first was in 19903 and the second in 20074. Both began at the same location, in the Valencian Community coast (Spanish Mediterranean Sea). Therefore, this zone became an important place for better understanding of CeMV epidemiology. Since 2010 all cetaceans stranded along the coastline of the Valencian Community have been analyzed for CeMV. In 2011, we identified a third outbreak of CeMV in the western Mediterranean Sea that involved over 50 striped dolphins in two months. The viral sequence that was identified in all positive animals was phylogenetically related to the 2007 CeMV outbreak sequence. Additionally, since 2012 to date we have detected a novel sequence of CeMV circulating in the Mediterranean striped dolphin population which probably has an Atlantic origin. This novel sequence has been identified in five striped dolphins and one common dolphin (Delphinus delphis) from the Western Mediterranean coast. Moreover, circulation of this novel sequence in the Mediterranean is supported by recent identification of eight CeMV positive striped dolphins stranded in Sicily (Italy) in 2016. The sequence detected was identical to Western Mediterranean cases. In this work we review the current state of knowledge on CeMV epidemiology with special emphasis on Western Mediterranean Sea.
Acknowledgments
This work was carried out under the auspices of a collaborative agreement on virology studies in sea mammals between Oceanografic of the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias of Valencia, the VISAVET Center of Complutense University of Madrid and Istituto Zooprofilactico Sperimentalle della Sicilia "A. Mirri." We thank Belén Rivera and Rocío Sánchez for technical assistance.
* Presenting author
Literature Cited
1. Kennedy S, Smyth JA, Cush PF, McCullough SJ, Allan GM, McQuaid S. 1988. Viral distemper now found in porpoises. Nature. 336:21.
2. Van Bressem MF, Duignan PJ, Banyard A, Barbieri M, Colegrove KM, De Guise S, Di Guardo G, Dobson A, Domingo M, Fauquier D, Fernandez A, Goldstein T, Grenfell B, Groch KR, Gulland F, Jensen BA, Jepson PD, Hall A, Kuiken T, Mazzariol S, Morris SE, Nielsen O, Raga JA, Rowles TK, Saliki J, Sierra E, Stephens N, Stone B, Tomo I, Wang J, Waltzek T, Wellehan JF. 2014. Cetacean morbillivirus: current knowledge and future directions. Viruses. 6:5145–5181.
3. Domingo M, Ferrer L, Pumarola M, Marco A, Plana J, Kennedy S, McAliskey M, Rima BK. 1990. Morbillivirus in dolphins. Nature. 348:21.
4. Raga JA, Banyard A, Domingo M, Corteyn M, Van Bressem MF, Fernandez M, Aznar FJ, Barrett T. 2008 Dolphin morbillivirus epizootic resurgence, Mediterranean Sea. Emerg Infect Dis. 14:471–473.