Porcine circoviruses, a type of pig virus found all over the world, have become more dangerous as they have mutated and combined with other pathogens, claim scientists. 
Roman Pogranichniy (pictured), a Purdue veterinary virologist, is trying to discover why porcine circoviruses suddenly began causing disease more than 20 years after it was identified in North America
Photo: Purdue Agricultural Communication/Tom Campbell
This will help scientists understand the process that allows circovirus-related diseases to progress and become more deadly.
The mutated form, referred to as PCV2-1a, can cause acute disease, and its combination with other pathogens can increase fatalities significantly, according to researchers at Purdue University, Indiana, US.
Roman Pogranichniy, a virologist at the Purdue School of Veterinary Medicine, says: "We think that the new co-factors, including bovine viral diarrhea virus-like pathogens and other swine viruses work together with porcine circovirus to attack the animals' systems and become more virulent."
The Purdue researchers studied lesions and blood from pigs exposed to a virus combination they had encountered on farm. Studying lesions caused by the virus and the blood of PCV2-infected pigs provided some indications of how the virus entered the animals' cells, the scientists said.
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