RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: Swine pasivirus (SPaV1) is a recently described enteric virus close to human parechoviruses and highly prevalent in pigs. Antibodies to Escherichia coli-expressed VP1 of SpaV1 have been found in a majority of humans in China. OBJECTIVES: The objectives were to estimate the antibody prevalence in a European country, to test if exposure to the virus was linked to pig products and if this exposure was a risk factor for the development of diabetes type 1. STUDY DESIGN: An ELISA test was developed and used to screen 842 healthy subjects with known exposure to pig products, 39 patients with diabetes type 1 and 20 controls. RESULTS: We identified a high seroprevalence (15.6%) reacting to VP1 of SPaV1 among healthy human subjects. Analysis of risk factors argues against cross-species transmission from pigs as the source of infection. Data also indicate that the presence of SPaV1 VP1-binding antibodies is not associated with diabetes type 1 in humans. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that the seroreactivity frequently found in humans against SpaV1 is due to cross-reactivity with related antigen, perhaps a picornavirus, and that SpaV1 is not a zoonotic virus.