Occurrence of Norovirus in pig faecal samples in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

© 2017 by the Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Disease. Objective: To determine the occurrence of Norovirus infection amongst pigs in selected communities in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Methods: Stool samples were collected from pigs in two commercial farms using sterile swab sticks between September and November 2015. The samples were analysed by RT-PCRs and nested PCRs utilizing the p289/p290 primers pair targeting RNA-dependent RNA polymerase section of Norovirus as previously described in literatures. All positive isolates were sequenced, edited and analysed phylogenetically making use of Geneious version 9.1.5 software. Results: Out of the one hundred and twenty faecal samples screened, four samples (3.3%) from farm A and one sample (0.8%) from farm B were positive for Norovirus. Phylogenetic analysis showed that out of the all the positive isolates analysed, three nucleotide sequences (FH14, FH20 and TS05) clustered with swine enteric Caliciviruses, while FHO5 clustered with human Norovirus GII and FH13 clustered closely with bat Caliciviruses. Conclusions: Results obtained in this study revealed that swine do harbour Norovirus and could be a source for human infection under compromised sanitary conditions.