Adult, healthy mute swans were experimentally infected with highly pathogenic avian influenza virus A/Cygnus cygnus/Germany/R65/2006 subtype H5N1. Immunologically naive birds died, whereas animals with preexisting, naturally acquired avian influenza virus-specific antibodies became infected asymptomatically and shed virus. Adult mute swans are highly susceptible, excrete virus, and can be clini...

Influenza A viruses cause pandemics at sporadic intervals. Pandemic viruses can potentially be introduced into the human population through in toto transfer of an avian influenza virus or through reassortment between avian and human strains. Pigs are believed to play a central role in the creation of pandemic viruses through reassortment because of their susceptibility to infection with both av...

The H3 subtype of avian influenza virus can provide genes for human influenza virus through gene reassortment, which has raised great concerns about its potential threat to human health. An H3N6 subtype of avian influenza virus was isolated from Guangxi Province, China, in 2009. All eight gene segments of the strain were sequenced. The sequence analysis indicated that this H3N6 virus was a natu...

Although extensive data exist on avian influenza in wild birds in North America, limited information is available from elsewhere, including Europe. Here, molecular diagnostic tools were employed for high-throughput surveillance of migratory birds, as an alternative to classical labor-intensive methods of virus isolation in eggs. This study included 36,809 samples from 323 bird species belonging...

  Although migratory waterfowl is well known to be a major reservoir for avian influenza virus (AIV), there are only few recently published reports about the seroprevalence of AIV in this group of birds. To investigate the AIV antibody status in migratory waterfowl of Iran, we collected 217 serum samples from 25 different species of waterfowl during 2003 and 2004. These serum samples were teste...

Domestic poultry serve as intermediates for transmission of influenza A virus from the wild aquatic bird reservoir to humans, resulting in influenza outbreaks in poultry and potential epidemics/pandemics among human beings. To combat emerging avian influenza virus, an inexpensive, heat-stable, and orally administered influenza vaccine would be useful to vaccinate large commercial poultry flocks...

Avian influenza viruses have adapted to human hosts, causing pandemics in humans. The key host-specific amino acid mutations required for an avian influenza virus to function in humans are unknown. Through multiple-sequence alignment and statistical testing of each aligned amino acid, we identified markers that discriminate human influenza viruses from avian influenza viruses. We applied strict...

Pigs are proposed to be "mixing vessel" hosts that can produce genetically novel reassortant viruses with pandemic potential. The appearance of any novel influenza viruses among pigs should pose concerns for human health. Here, we report the complete genome sequence of a novel H4N1 influenza virus [A/Swine/HuBei/06/2009(H4N1)] isolated from a pig in Central China in 2009. The genomic sequence a...

Avian Influenza (AI) is caused by type A influenza virus belonging to the family orthomyxoviridae, which is classified into 16 HA and 9 NA subtypes based on two surface glycoprotein’s haemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA). In the present study we did identification and HA-subtyping of avian influenza virus by reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) during the first outbreaks of AI in India duri...

BACKGROUND Low pathogenic avian influenza viruses (LPAIV) have been reported in shorebirds, especially at Delaware Bay, USA, during spring migration. However, data on patterns of virus excretion, minimal infectious doses, and clinical outcome are lacking. The ruddy turnstone (Arenaria interpres) is the shorebird species with the highest prevalence of influenza virus at Delaware Bay. OBJECTIVE...