Reposted with permission of Bruce Williams:
>Subject: Coronavirus identified in ECE
>
>Sukie - thought you'd like to be the first to know, and you can post the
>info to the FML - please direct any questions to me.  Let's not blow
>this one up too big, though, because I am not announcing a vaccine
>here....
 
(Note:  Bruce, who first let me know about it, is very excited about
the new Merial CD vaccine (as are so many, including me), and we all
hope that folks will continue encouraging that company to continue
work on the very promising new vaccine.  See recent posts on the
matter for more details.)
 
>Dr. Matti Kuipel at the Purdue University College of Veterinary
>Medicine, has definitively identified a coronavirus as the cause of
>epizootic catarrhal enteritis in the ferret.  Loops of gut from a number
>of cases of ECE submitted to the Purdue Diagnostic Lab stained
>positively for antibodies against a particular type of coronavirus.
>These results have been repeated at a separate Canadian laboratory.
>Another collaborator, Dr. Melissa Kennedy of the University of Tennessee
>appears to have isolated a primer for a restricted portion of the
>coronavirus genome from this material.
>
>I have sent material from the original work that I did with the virus in
>1994 for confirmation.
>
>We have long suspected coronavirus as the cause of ECE - the viruses
>were seen in the work done at the AFIP in 1994, and sproadically since
>then.  Dr. Kuipel's persistent efforts to nail down the cause of the
>disease (which he appears to have done in elegant fashion) will
>"legitimize" the disease in the veterinary literature and hopefully will
>open the door for others to conduct additional research, isolate this
>agent, and produce rapid diagnostic tests and a vaccine.  We are
>currently working on publishing the pathology data from the entire
>investigation, dating back to 1994.
>
>Please realize that this announcement DOES NOT mean that a rapid
>diagnostic test has been developed (all tests were run on either
>surgical biopsies of the intestine or autopsy material), nor does it
>mean that a vaccine is available, nor are the researchers developing any
>of these products for the market. However this is a vital piece of the
>puzzle, and should go far in enticing the right parties to look at the
>potential for developing these type of products.
>
>
>Bruce Williams, DVM, DACVP
>Chairman, Department of Telemedicine
>Armed Forces Institute of Pathology
>Washington, DC 20306-6000
>http://www.afip.org
 
 
So, if you have questions I'll compile them and get them through to Bruce.
Just use my address above!
 
Sukie
[Posted in FML issue 2739]