BACKGROUND Pigs are thought to act as intermediate hosts in the ecology of influenza viruses of both avian and human origin. The recent development of procedures for pig ex vivo respiratory organ explants has provided new tools for the assessment of influenza virus infection in pigs. OBJECTIVES To use pig ex vivo organ explants to assess the susceptibility of pigs to infection with contempora...

Hemagglutination (HA) and hemagglutination inhibition (HI) tests for avian influenza (AI) virus (H5N1) were standardized varying various factors like erythrocytes from different species, type of diluent, incubation temperature and incubation period. The virus was propagated in embryonated chicken eggs (9-11 days). The allantoic fluid (AF) was harvested 36 hours post incubation and was confirmed...

Recently, three novel avian-origin swine influenza viruses (SIVs) were first isolated from pigs in Guangdong Province, southern China, yet little is known about the seroprevalence of avian influenza viruses among pigs in southern China. Here, we report for the first time the seroprevalence of avian H3, H4, and H6 influenza viruses in swine populations and the lack of seroepidemiological evidenc...

Since wild birds are the major natural reservoir for all known influenza A viruses, understanding the ecology of avian influenza (AI) viruses circulating in wild birds is critical to predicting disease risk in wild and domestic birds and preventing transmission to humans. AI virus which is shed by infected birds into aquatic environments plays a pivotal role in the sustained transmission of AI....

Avian influenza viruses are now widely recognized as important threats to agricultural biosecurity and public health, and as the potential source for pandemic human influenza viruses. Human infections with avian influenza viruses have been reported from Asia (H5N1, H5N2, H9N2), Africa (H5N1, H10N7), Europe (H7N7, H7N3, H7N2), and North America (H7N3, H7N2, H11N9). Direct and indirect public hea...

INTRODUCTION The following complete molecular diagnostic procedure we developed, based on real-time quantitative PCR and traditional PCR, is effective for avian influenza surveillance, virus subtyping, and viral genome sequencing. METHOD This study provides a specific and sensitive step-by-step procedure for efficient avian influenza identification of 16 hemagglutinin and 9 neuraminidase avia...

Over the last decade, avian influenza (AI) has been considered an emerging disease that would become next pandemic, particularly in countries like South Korea, with continuous animal outbreaks. In this situation, risk assessment is highly needed to prevent and prepare for human infection AI. Thus, we developed matrix a high-risk area of AI Korea based on notion multiplication hazards vulnerabil...

A telephone survey of 986 Hong Kong households determined exposure and risk perception of avian influenza from live chicken sales. Householders bought 38,370,000 live chickens; 11% touched them when buying, generating 4,220,000 exposures annually; 36% (95% confidence interval [CI] 33%-39%) perceived this as risky, 9% (7%-11%) estimated >50% likelihood of resultant sickness, whereas 46% (43%-49%...

The ecology of avian influenza (AI) viruses in wild aquatic birds of Asia is poorly understood, especially for the H5N1 high pathogenicity AI (HPAI) viruses. From March 2006 through November 2008, 20 AI viruses were isolated in the Crimea region of Ukraine with an overall frequency of virus recovery of 3.3%. All the viruses were isolated from three species of dabbling ducks: mallard (Anas platy...

Transmission of avian influenza viruses from bird to human is a rare event even though avian influenza viruses infect the ciliated epithelium of human airways in vitro and ex vivo. Using an in vitro model of human ciliated airway epithelium (HAE), we demonstrate that while human and avian influenza viruses efficiently infect at temperatures of the human distal airways (37 degrees C), avian, but...