Predominance of bovine viral diarrhea virus 1b and 1d subtypes during eight years of survey in Poland.

The genetic diversity of bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) was determined from 65 animals persistently infected with BVDV and diagnosed between 2004 and 2011 in Poland. The samples originated from 28 herds in 12 provinces, where over 90% of the whole cattle population of Poland is reared. Phylogenetic analysis based on the fragments of two genomic regions of BVDV namely, 5'-untranslated region (5'-UTR) and N(pro) was performed. All the BVDV isolates belonged to BVDV-1 species and were further divided into four subtypes. There were 31 viruses of BVDV-1b subtype (47.6%) present in 12 herds, 24 of BVDV-1d subtype (36.9%) in 9 herds, 8 of BVDV-1f subtype (12.3%) in 5 herds and 2 BVDV-1g subtype (3.0%) in 2 herds. Neither BVDV-1a subtype, nor BVDV-2 species or any atypical bovine pestivirus were found among isolates tested. Despite increasing import of live cattle in the recent years, genetic diversity of Polish BVDV isolates was rather low.