Identification of a canine coronavirus in Australian racing Greyhounds

Abstract

Coronavirus infection can cause a range of syndromes, which in dogs can include mild-to-severe enteritis that generally resolves rapidly. Fatalities can occur from coinfection with other pathogens, including canine parvovirus. Between late December 2019 and April 2020, canine coronavirus (CCoV) was detected in Australian racing Greyhounds that displayed signs of gastrointestinal disease. The CCoV was genotyped using high-throughput sequencing, recovering 98.3% of a type IIb CCoV, generally thought to cause a mild but highly contagious enteric disease. The Australian CCoV was almost identical (99.9%, whole-genome sequence) to another CCoV associated with an outbreak of severe vomiting in dogs in the United Kingdom at the same time (December 2019–March 2020).