The re‐emerging of SADS‐CoV infection in pig herds in Southern China

A new highly virulent swine acute diarrhoea syndrome coronavirus (SADS‐CoV) emerged in Guangdong province in 2017 followed by fatal diarrhoea that involved the death of 24,693 piglets. And yet from May 2017 to January 2019, there were no new SADS cases arising in pig herds in Guangdong. In this study, we reported the recent diarrhoea outbreak of SADS‐CoV in Southern China on February 2019. Intestinal samples collected from diarrhoeal piglets were detected for common swine virus and confirmed that SADS‐CoV was responsible for the diarrhoea case. Meanwhile, serological investigation of sows’ sera implied that SADS‐CoV has existed in the farm and PEDV antibody may not directly contribute to the amplification of SADS‐CoV. Homology and phylogenetic analysis of the whole genome showed that the re‐emerging SADS‐CoV strain shared high sequence identities with existing SADS‐CoV strains and all strains clustered together in Alpha coronavirus. All in all, the report herein emphasized the re‐emerging of SADS‐CoV and highlights continuous monitoring for this virus.