Evidence of long distance airborne transmission of Aujeszky's disease (pseudorabies) virus

Aujeszky's disease has been the subject of an eradication campaign in Denmark since 1980. A detailed knowledge of the virus strains present in the country was provided by restriction fragment analyses of older clinical isolates, and of isolates from all the virologically confirmed outbreaks since 1985. The introduction of foreign strains into southern border areas was demonstrated during the winters of 1984/85, 1986/87 and 1987/88. An epizootic during the winter of 1987/88 was shown to correlate with an unusual predominance of southerly winds. Both conventional and specific pathogen free herds became infected. A herd level case-control analysis of the outbreaks during the winter of 1987/88 revealed that there was a positive correlation between the risk of infection and the size of the herd. The observations support the hypothesis of airborne transmission of the disease.