Petr Václavek

African swine fever (ASF) is a highly virulent disease rapidly spreading through Europe with fatal consequences for wild boar and domestic pigs. Understanding pathogen transmission among individuals and populations is crucial for disease control. However, the carcass attractiveness for boars was surprisingly almost unstudied. Here, we evaluated if...

African swine fever (ASF) is a contagious disease of wild boar and domestic pigs notifiable to the World Organisation for Animal Health due to its high socio-economic impact. ASF is caused by the complex ASF virus (ASFV), and it can present different clinical manifestations that can be confused with other diseases; for this reason, laboratory testi...

Introduction African swine fever (ASF) is a contagious viral disease of pigs and wild boar that poses a major threat to the global swine industry. The genotype II African swine fever virus (ASFV) entered the European Union (EU) in 2014 and since then fourteen countries have been affected, Italy and North Macedonia being the last in 2022. While whol...

Outbreaks of disease at the wildlife–livestock interface may require management interventions. Where they involve exotic/non‐endemic pathogens in wildlife, then such plans may need to be rapidly conceived and implemented to prevent further disease spread. However, detailed information on the distribution of infection is likely to be absent, whilst...

Dynamic changes in the farming practices, growing numbers of beef farmers and geographic distribution of beef cattle herds in the Czech Republic impact on helminth parasites of cattle and vice versa. We summarize in a brief form results of parasitological examination of samples collected by farmers from range of beef cattle farms across the whole C...

The survival of African swine fever virus (ASFV) on different matrices and its infectivity in wild as well as domestic swine is still a matter of interest. ASFV is resistant to environmental effects; this fact is enhanced by the presence of organic material. Therefore, the aim of this work was to determine the ability of laboratory ASFV to survive...

In Europe, paramphistomosis caused by Paramphistomum spp. was historically regarded as being of minor importance. However, Calicophoron daubneyi has recently been recognized as an emerging pathogen in Europe due to its increasing prevalence and negative impact on livestock production. In search for paramphistomid flukes, 5573 beef cattle fecal samp...

In recent decades, wild boar populations have been increasing worldwide due to several potential causes, including human-induced and natural environmental changes and biological and ecological factors. In Europe, this phenomenon has several economic, social and environmental implications such as the increase of agricultural and forest damage, road...

Between June 2017 and April 2018, an outbreak of African swine fever (ASF) affected wild boar in the southeast of the Czech Republic. Here, we present the whole-genome sequence of the causative ASF virus. It belongs to genotype II and shows very high identity with other strains from Eastern Europe.

African swine fever (ASF) is a fatal, infectious disease affecting wild boars and domestic pigs, mostly resulting in their deaths. Previous studies showed that carcasses of infected wild boars pose a serious threat for ASF virus transmission and leaving of dead bodies in the environment enables persistence of the disease in the given affected area....

The supplementary video file showing an example of wild boar cannibalism which is in detail described in the article “Confirmed cannibalism in wild boar and its possible role in African swine fever transmission“.

For the monitoring of wild boar interactions with conspecific carcasses, seven wild boar carrions were placed in different sites in the Czech Republic. Data was collected by camera traps. In total, 732 visits were recorded of wild boars at the carcass sites. Direct contact with the carcass was detected in 81% of the records. Cannibalism was observe...

The West Nile virus (WNV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus causing meningoencephalitis in humans and animals. Due to their particular susceptibility to WNV infection, horses serve as a sentinel species. In a population of Romanian semi-feral horses living in the Danube delta region, we have analyzed the distribution of candidate polymorphic genetic m...

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of small ruminant lentivirus (SRLV) infections on sheep and goat farms which are exempt from state monitoring and carry molecular characterisation of strains circulating amongst these farms without SRLV eradication. A total number of 3,410 blood samples of sheep and goats from 21 herds were coll...

During a severe outbreak of diarrhoea and vomiting in a pig herd in Central Eastern Europe, faecal samples were tested positive for porcine epidemic diarrhoea virus (PEDV) and negative for transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV) using a commercial RT-qPCR assay that can detect both of these coronaviruses. However, further analyses, using other T...

To test the different sensitivity of rodents of the subfamily Murinae and Gerbillinae, Wagner's gerbils (Gerbillus dasyurus), Tristram's jirds (Meriones tristrami) and multimammate rats (Mastomys natalensis) were inoculated with Neospora caninum tachyzoites. Clinical signs of neosporosis appeared in all inoculated animals. Histopathological examina...

The main aim of the present study was to establish the prevalence of antibodies against Neospora caninum dogs from the Czech Republic and to examine the dynamics of antibody titers during a long-term period. For this purpose, sera of 858 dogs were examined for the presence of anti-N. caninum antibodies using an indirect immunofluorescent antibody t...

A serological survey for antibodies against Neospora caninum in aborting cattle was carried out in the Czech Republic. Serum samples from 463 aborting dairy cows originated from 137 farms from different parts of the Czech Republic were tested for presence of N. caninum antibodies by use of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and an indirec...