A serological survey of chickens, Japanese quail, pigeons, ducks and crows for antibodies to chicken anaemia virus (CAV) in Japan

Abstract

The chicken has been considered as the natural host for chicken anaemia virus (CAV). To examine the prevalence of CAV in domestic and wild birds in Japan, we analyzed serum samples collected from 211 chickens, 168 Japanese quail, 105 pigeons, 113 ducks and 116 crows for the presence of antibodies to CAV by a micro‐scale virus neutralization (VN) test. Nine of the 13 chicken flocks (69.2%) were found to be positive for VN antibodies to CAV. Of the 211 individual chicken serum samples, 127 (60.2%) were positive. VN antibodies were detected in 103 of the 168 (61.3%) quail samples with titres ranging from 1:20 to ≥ 1:2560. Serum samples collected from quail in 1992 were found to possess a lower rate of antibody‐positive sera (7.7%) and lower antibody titres (1:20 to 1:80) than those collected in 1995 (90.2% and 1:20 to ≥ 1:2560, respectively). None of the pigeon, duck and crow samples neutralized CAV at a 1:20 dilution. These results indicate that quail might be one of the hosts of CAV or CAV‐like virus in Japan. This is the first report of VN antibodies to CAV in a species other than chicken.