Wildlife biologists are trying to connect the dots on a virus that has started to infect North America’s wild turkey population

Lymphoproliferative Disease Virus, known as LPDV, has been present in domestic turkeys in Europe and Israel for decades, but in the last few years, biologists have started confirming cases in wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) in the eastern United States. Some of the infected birds have lesions on their head and feet, although many of the sick fowl are not symptomatic, making their identification difficult. Dr. Justin Brown, assistant research scientist and diagnostician with the University of Georgia’s Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study, said his team confirmed its first diagnosis of LPDV in 2009 by a process of elimination. He said the larger wildlife diagnostic laboratories received infected specimens and tested the turkeys for known diseases that cause lymphoid tumors. Brown’s team took the testing one step further, and the discovery was surprising. “[W]e had a virologist who worked up the case a little bit more and screened it for all of the oncogenic, or cancer-inducing, viruses that are in North America,” Brown said. “And when he came up negative on all those, he screened it for LPDV. … And it came up positive — all tissues.”

Source: Earth Island Journal, 25 November 2013
http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/a_new_viru…