Pathogenesis of Chicken Infectious Anemia

The incubation period is relatively long under field conditions, with the disease taking weeks to spread through the entire flock. Basically all CAV isolates cause anemia and/or aplastic bone marrow.

• + 8 days post infection haematocrit levels, thrombocytes and red and white cell counts decrease
• Blood takes longer to clot
• Between 28 – 36 days post infection the heamathological parameters in recovered birds return to normal

Under experimental conditions the virus is found present in most organs after one day (brain, liver, spleen, bursa, bone marrow, rectal contents and serum).

CAV can be found latent in SPF flocks where the virus was detected in the ovaries, oviduct, testicles and spleen of birds without obvious seroconversion until the birds came into production