Chris Cebra has asked me to share this with anyone who may be interested.



Hi Everyone,
I just wanted to throw in my 2 cents about the recent outbreaks of respiratory disease in alpacas, so scientifically referred to as “snots”. The course and contagiousness of this certainly sounds viral, and the association of adenovirus with this is interesting, but I believe we must interpret that finding with caution. Don Mattson first isolated camelid adenovirus here in Oregon about 15 years ago, and the folks at Michigan State found it there about the same time. That virus quickly became the whipping boy for all sorts of diseases, from diarrhea, to respiratory disease, to hepatopathy, to ill thrift. It was convenient, because most ill camelids had a positive titer. So did most healthy camelids. Not as convenient. Though we have seen adenovirus as a cause of respiratory disease in clinics, the ubiquitous nature of adenoviral infection means we have to be cautious of overinterpreting single titers. Rising titers, virus isolation, or identification of characteristic inclusion bodies in lesions would be more supportive. I would be interested to know if anyone has identified any of those in any of their clinical cases.

Herpesviruses are another possibility, but have really not been described as causing this sort of issue in camelids. The show-related, rapid-spread of this infection does remind me of the enteric coronavirus outbreak we identified in camelids about nine years ago, and quickly became a nationwide problem. Interestingly, that coronavirus we sequenced was related to a form of bovine coronavirus associated with both enteric and respiratory disease. I wonder if we are seeing another jump from cattle or separate mutation that has potentiated the respiratory aspect of the infection…… If anyone is interested in pursuing that angle, Ling Jin, my virologist collaborator with expertise in camelid coronavirus has agreed to start looking at samples, virus isolation on nasal swabs of acutely infected animals and serum neutralization titers. I just thought I’d throw this into the discussion, since coronavirus had been heretofore ignored.


Chris Cebra, VMD, MS, Diplomate ACVIM
Associate Professor OSU Oregon