Coinfection of novel goose parvovirus-associated virus and duck circovirus in feather sacs of Cherry Valley ducks with feather shedding syndrome

Since 2017, an infectious disease, named feather shedding syndrome (FSS), has consistently broken out in Cherry Valley ducks in East China. The sick ducks showed the new clinical symptoms of feather shedding and being plucked off with difficulty after slaughter. The high incidence rate of 20 to 70% predominantly happened in ducks of 4 to 5 wk of age, and nearly 40% mortality rate was observed in infected ducks. To explore the possible role of novel goose parvovirus-associated virus (NGPV) and duck circovirus (DuCV) in this disease, a total of 540 feather sac samples were collected from sick ducks with FSS. The infection rates of NGPV and DuCV in samples were 82.78 and 78.89%, respectively, and the coinfection rate of the 2 viruses was 70.00%. Notably, ducks of 4 to 5 wk of age usually presented obvious and severe FSS in the flocks with high codetection rate of NGPV and DuCV. Furthermore, 9 NGPV strains were isolated from feather sacs and 5 synchronous amino acid mutations were demonstrated in VP3 protein. These results indicated that coinfection of NGPV and DuCV might play an important role in duck FSS disease.