Isolation and phylogenetic analysis of Getah virus from a commercial modified live vaccine against porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus.

Abstract

In the present study, Getah virus (GETV) isolate, GETV-V1, was isolated from a commercial PRRSV attenuated live vaccine (MLV), which has been widely used to immunize pigs against porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV). Further analysis demonstrated that nine batches of the PRRSV MLV vaccine (three batches per year from 2017 to 2019) from the same manufacturer were all positive for GETV. Genomic analyses indicated that the GETV-V1 isolate shared the highest sequence identity with the GETV strain, 16-I-674, which was isolated from horses in Japan. The phylogenetic analysis based on the genomic sequences showed that the GETV-V1 strain was clustered with the Japanese GETV strains. Taken together, this is the first report of GETV contamination in live swine vaccines in China. Our findings demonstrate that immunization with commercial live vaccines might be a potential novel route of GETV transmission in swine. This highlights the need for more extensive monitoring of commercial live vaccines.