Abstract
Phocine distemper virus (PDV) was first recognized in 1988 following a massive epidemic in harbor and grey seals in north-western Europe. Since then, the epidemiology of infection in North Atlantic and Arctic pinnipeds has been investigated. In the western North Atlantic endemic infection in harp and grey seals predates the European epidemic, with relatively small, localized mortality events occurring primarily in harbor seals. By contrast, PDV seems not to have become established in European harbor seals following the 1988 epidemic and a second event of similar magnitude and extent occurred in 2002. PDV is a distinct species within the Morbillivirus genus with minor sequence variation between outbreaks over time. There is now mounting evidence of PDV-like viruses in the North Pacific/Western Arctic with serological and molecular evidence of infection in pinnipeds and sea otters. However, despite the absence of associated mortality in the region, there is concern that the virus may infect the large Pacific harbor seal and northern elephant seal populations or the endangered Hawaiian monk seals. Here, we review the current state of knowledge on PDV with particular focus on developments in diagnostics, pathogenesis, immune response, vaccine development, phylogenetics and modeling over the past 20 years.
Highlights
Beginning in late 1987 seemingly unprecedented epidemics spread through pinniped populations from Siberia to Western Europe
The clinical course of acute Phocine distemper virus (PDV) infection in free-ranging pinnipeds has most frequently been observed in harbor seals, and occasionally grey, harp and hooded seals, during epidemics or mortality events in Europe and North America [51,52,53,54,55,56,57]
Virus neutralization (VN), and plaque reduction (PR) tests are the most extensively used to determine the presence of antibodies against morbilliviruses in the blood of a large number of pinniped species [6,10,12,106,107,108]
Summary
Beginning in late 1987 seemingly unprecedented epidemics spread through pinniped populations from Siberia to Western Europe. The event followed an outbreak of canine distemper virus (CDV) infection in terrestrial mammals and a variety of diagnostic tests later confirmed that CDV was implicated in the seal deaths [1,2]. A symposium and round table discussion was convened in Hannover, Germany, in 1994 to review the current knowledge on marine mammal morbilliviruses [15,16]. August 2014, a Research and Policy for Infectious Disease Dynamics (RAPIDD) workshop was convened on marine mammal morbilliviruses at Princeton University, USA, to discuss recent advances in research on PDV pathology, pathogenesis, transmission, species susceptibility, immunology and development of vaccination strategies for naïve threatened species such as Mediterranean (Monachus monachus) and Hawaiian (M. schauinslandii) monk seals, and future directions for research. As an outcome of the workshop and round table discussion, we review the pertinent research in these relevant fields that has been published in the past 20 years and identify knowledge gaps requiring further research investment
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