Bovine Coronavirus Detection in a Collection of Diarrheic Stool Samples Positive for Group A Bovine Rotavirus

Neonatal diarrhea is an important cause of economic losses for cattle farmers. The main viral etiologies of enteric diseases are group A rotaviruses (GARV) and the bovine coronavirus (BCoV). Although both viruses infect calves of the same age, the occurrence of mixed infections is still under studied. The present study describes the co-infection of BCoV and GARV in stool samples. Forty-four diarrheic fecal samples from calves up to 60 days old that had previously tested positive for GARV by SS-PAGE were analyzed using semi-nested PCR for BCoV. A product with 251 bp of the BCoV nucleoprotein gene was amplified in 15.9% (7/44) of the samples, demonstrating that coinfection is not an unusual event. These results reinforce the need for testing for both GARV and BCoV, even in fecal samples that previously tested positive for one virus.