For decades, French guinea fowl have been affected by fulminating enteritis of unclear origin. By using metagenomics, we identified a novel avian gammacoronavirus associated with this disease that is distantly related to turkey coronaviruses. Fatal respiratory diseases in humans have recently been caused by coronaviruses of animal origin.
Keywords: France; avian coronavirus; coronavirus; fulminating disease; guinea fowl; metagenomics; next-generation sequencing; viruses; zoonoses.