Serologic Evidence That Infectious Canine Hepatitis Virus Commonly Infects Humans and Is Related to Human Adenovirus Type 8

摘要

We have been interested in the possibility that viruses commonly occurring in household pets and other domestic animals infect man. Human infection with infectious canine hepatitis virus, (ICHV) has been suspected in the past, but evidence for this has been meager. Studies on the relationship of ICHV to human disease have been largely limited to veterinary workers (1) or to determining whether ICHV causes human hepatitis (2). ICHV, a canine adenovirus, was of particular interest to us in regard to human infection because Sarma et al. showed it to be oncogenic for hamsters (3). We reported recently that ICHV can infect human cells in vitro and initiate the synthesis of small amounts of new virus, and that infected human cells produce tumor-specific antigens (4). We also found that ICHV can frequently be isolated from the kidneys of dogs (5). This is not surprising because most dogs periodically receive doses of live attenuated ICHV vaccine for the prevention of infectious hepatitis and probably harbor virus for extended periods of time.