EN
Classical swine fever (CSF) is a serious infectious disease of pigs which is widespread in Europe. Classical swine fever virus (CSFV) belongs to the Pestivirus genus of the Flaviviridae family. The aim of this work was the genetic characterization of CSFV strains derived from different countries. In the first stage of the study a fragment of glycoprotein E2 coding region of 114 strains representing different countries was analyzed. The analysis indicated a separation of the strains into 2 major subgroups, I and II. Subgroup I contains a majority of non-European and a few Asian isolates. All Central European strains were branched in subgroup II. In the second stage of the study a fragment of 5'UTR of 46 Central European strains was analyzed. Both analyses showed that these strains could be subdivided into two minor subgroups, IIA1 and IIA2. While all analyzed Slovakian and Hungarian strains are closely related to Western European ones belonging to subgroup IIA1, among Polish strains are representives of both subgroups. The majority, together with the Estonian strain, was grouped in IIA2. Three strains from the south-east region of Poland were grouped in IIA1 together with Slovakian and Hungarian isolates.