RESEARCH Experimental Infection of Swans and Geese with Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Virus (H5N1) of Asian Lineage

• Main Authors: Justin D. Brown, David E. Stallknecht, David E. Swayne
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Whooper Swan
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.170.7069; http://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/14/1/pdfs/136.pdf

The role of wild birds in the epidemiology of the Asian lineage highly pathogenic avian infl uenza (HPAI) virus subtype H5N1 epizootic and their contribution to the spread of the responsible viruses in Eurasia and Africa are unclear. To better understand the potential role of swans and geese in the epidemiology of this virus, we infected 4 species of swans and 2 species of geese with an HPAI virus of Asian lineage recovered from a whooper swan in Mongolia in 2005, A/whooper swan/Mongolia/244/2005 (H5N1). The highest mortality rates were observed in swans, and species-related differences in clinical illness and viral shedding were evident. These results suggest that the potential for HPAI (H5N1) viral shedding and the movement of infected birds may be species-dependent and can help explain observed deaths associated with HPAI (H5N1) infection in anseriforms in Eurasia. The first indication of wild bird involvement in the Asian lineage highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus (H5N1) epizootic occurred late in 2002 and 2003, when HPAI (H5N1) was isolated from captive and wild birds in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, People’s Republic of China (1). Since these initial outbreaks, HPAI (H5N1) has continued to cause illness and death in a variety of wild birds in Asia (2), and in 2005 the virus was recovered from migratory waterfowl during a wild bird die-off involving primarily bar-headed geese (Anser