Classical Swine Fever Virus: Discrimination Between Vaccine Strains and Euro-pean Field Viruses by Restriction Endonuclease Cleavage of PCR Amplicons

Abstract

Classical swine fever virus (CSFV; alias hog cholera virus; HCV) belongs to Pestivirus ge-nus of the Flaviviridae family, together with bovine viral diarrhoea virus and border disease virus (Wengler 1991). Classical swine fever (CSF) is a highly contagious disease, which af-fects both domestic swine and wild boars. The disease is characterized by high fever and mul-tiple hemorrhages, but it is frequently asso-ciated with very mild or unapparent clinical signs (Van Oirschot 1986). CSF is enzootic in most countries of Continental Europe, South America and the Far East. The control and erad-ication programmes are based on the restricted policy for movement of swine, stamping out of CSFV positive and suspicious pigs and testing of wild boars as potential reservoirs of the vi-rus.