One after the other: a novel Bluetongue virus strain related to Toggenburg virus detected in the Piedmont region (North‐western Italy), extends the panel of novel atypical BTV strains

Abstract

In this rapid communication, a novel atypical bluetongue virus (BTV) strain detected in goats in the Piedmont region (north-western Italy) is described. This strain, BTV-Z ITA2017, is most related in Seg-2/VP-2 (83.8% nt/82.7% aa) to strain TOV of BTV- 25. Reactive antisera of goats positive by cELISA for BTV antibodies failed to neutralize a chimeric virus expressing the outermost protein of TOV. Infected ani- mals displayed low levels of RNAemia and absence of clinical signs consistent with bluetongue infection, a scenario described in animals infected with atypical BTV strains