Detecção sorológica e molecular da infecção por Hepacivirus em caninos e equídeos em municípios do Estado do Pará.

Abstract

The Hepatitis C vims is a flavivims, Hepacivirus genus responsible for infecting about 3 % of world population, causing chronic disease that can progress to liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. However, for the great difficulty of performing experiments with the vims, the research finds many limitations and restrictions that slow progress in this area. Since the discovery of new hepacivims in animal hosts, a sequence of works has been performed to identify who are these hosts and how their study can contribute to the understanding of behavior and evolution of flaviviruses, besides trying to clarify the pathogenicity and vimlence of these new vimses in infected animais. This study aims to detect the presence of hepacivims in dogs and horses in Pará State. To results were tested semm of 30 dogs and 300 horses from 9 cities of Pará, through the indirect ELISA and NESTED-RT PCR techniques. Of the total samples, was confirmed the presence of viral RNA by PCR in 25 horses from six different locations. Other analysis of dogs and horses were negative. These results reveal the presence of the vims in horses of the Amazon, featuring this like the first report of detection of animal hepacivirus in Latin America. Phylogenetic analysis of the segment from NS3 identified sequences suggest considerable diversity among isolates of this vims, similar to that observed in hepatitis C vims. The results obtained in this study may mean that it is a vims enzootic in northeastern area from Pará State.