Canine parvovirus- an insight into diagnostic aspect

Canine parvovirus (CPV) leads to an acute disease, characterized by hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, vomiting and myocarditis in dogs.The disease can affect dogs of any age but is fatal in pups.CPV has undergone genetic variations that have led to emergence of various CPV-2 antigenic variants such as 2a, 2b and 2c with replacement of the original CPV-2 circulating in the dog population.CPV genome is made up of 5.2 Kb nucleotides.Viral protein VP2 plays a very important role in determining antigenicity and host range specificity of CPV.The antigenicity as well as host range of CPV is determined by virus specific VP2 protein.That's why the mutations that affect the VP2 gene are the main source of different antigenic variants.It spreads rapidly in the wild population of canines as well as domestic animals, infected feces serve as a main source of infection because the virus is shed in large quantity in the feces particularly 4 -7 days post infection.