BACKGROUND Although influenza surveillance has recently been improved in some sub-Saharan African countries, no information is yet available from Burkina Faso. OBJECTIVES Our study was the first to determine the prevalence of influenza viruses circulating in Burkina Faso through a sentinel surveillance system. METHODS We conducted sentinel surveillance with oropharyngeal (OP) swabs collecte...

BACKGROUND Avian influenza viruses are known to productively infect a number of mammal species, several of which are commonly found on or near poultry and gamebird farms. While control of rodent species is often used to limit avian influenza virus transmission within and among outbreak sites, few studies have investigated the potential role of these species in outbreak dynamics. METHODOLOGY/P...

The emergence of highly pathogenic (HP) H5 influenza A viruses in Asia and the increase of HP H7 viruses in Europe and the Americas focused greater attention on the ecology of influenza in wild birds. Influenza virus surveillance studies in wild bird populations in the Americas, Europe, and Asia confirmed that wild aquatic birds are the reservoir for all known influenza A viruses. Phylogenetic ...

Influenza activity in Europe during the winter 2005-2006 started late January - early February 2006 and first occurred in the Netherlands, France, Greece and England. Subsequently, countries were affected in a random pattern across Europe and the period of influenza activity lasted till the end of April. In contrast to the winter seasons in the period 2001-2005, no west-east pattern was detecte...

The burden of human infections with influenza A and B viruses is substantial, and the impact of influenza B virus infections can exceed that of influenza A virus infections in some seasons. Over the past few decades, viruses of two influenza B virus lineages (Victoria and Yamagata) have circulated in humans, and both lineages are now represented in influenza vaccines, as recommended by the Worl...

BACKGROUND Epidemiological studies suggest that, following infection with influenza virus, there is a short period during which a host experiences a lower susceptibility to infection with other influenza viruses. This viral interference appears to be independent of any antigenic similarities between the viruses. We used the ferret model of human influenza to systematically investigate viral int...

Macrophages are known to be one of the first lines of defense against influenza virus infection. However, they may also contribute to severe disease caused by the highly pathogenic avian (HPAI) H5N1 influenza viruses. One reason for this may be the ability of certain influenza virus strains to productively replicate in macrophages. However, studies investigating the productive replication of in...

Background: Pandemic influenza A viruses are often zoonotic. Rapid influenza virus diagnostics can play a role in reducing pandemic virus spread. However, most diagnostic tests have not been evaluated against animal influenza viruses. Objective: To evaluate a leading rapid diagnostic test against zoonotic influenza A virus strains. Study Design: We evaluated the performance of the QuickVue® Inf...

We surveyed live-poultry markets in Korea in 2003 and isolated 9 H9N2, 6 H3N2, and 1 H6N1 influenza viruses. Antigenic and phylogenetic analyses showed that all 9 H9N2 isolates were of A/Chicken/Korea/25232-96006/96-like lineage (which caused disease in chickens in Korea in 1996) but were different from H9N2 viruses of southeastern China. They had at least 4 genotypes and replicated in chickens...