Canine and feline influenza: Possible new emerging zoonoses?

The dog is an animal that everyone knows. Due to the fact that dog can be well trained and friendly, many people have dogs in their homes as pets. Dogs can have many diseases, including canine influenza, which is considered to be an important new infection for dogs.7 A variety of pathogens, including canine parainfluenza virus, canine adenovirus and Bordetella bronchiseptica, as well as mycoplasmas, Streptococcus equii subsp. zooepidemicus, canine herpesvirus and reovirus-1, -2 and -3 have been reported as causes of respiratory infection in dogs.8 For parainfluenza virus infection, it is believed that the transmission of active human infection to dogs is the main kind of infection.9 Influenza virus infection in dogs is not a new topic, and there are many old reports on influenza in dogs. In 1975, Fyson et al reported that dogs constituted an unequivocal reservoir for human influenza A virus.10 In 1980, Houser studied the seroepidemiology of influenza among dogs and reported the presence of antibody to A/Texas/77 and further suggested that “these dogs had at some time been infected with this virus, and that dogs could play a role in the epidemiology of influenza in man”.11 Another interesting report is on the seroepidemiology of influenza C infection in dogs.12 It is reported that “the distribution of antibodies in the tested canine population, in contrast to that of humans, did not show a significant degree of association with age”.12