Mapping the risk of avian influenza in wild birds in the US

Abstract

Avian influenza virus (AIV) is an important public health issue because pandemic influenza viruses in people have contained genes from viruses that infect birds. The H5 and H7 AIV subtypes have periodically mutated from low pathogenicity to high pathogenicity form. Analysis of the geographic distribution of AIV can identify areas where reassortment events might occur and how high pathogenicity influenza might travel if it enters wild bird populations in the US. Modelling the number of AIV cases is important because the rate of co-infection with multiple AIV subtypes increases with the number of cases and co-infection is the source of reassortment events that give rise to new strains of influenza, which occurred before the 1968 pandemic. Aquatic birds in the orders Anseriformes and Charadriiformes have been recognized as reservoirs of AIV since the 1970s. However, little is known about influenza prevalence in terrestrial birds in the order Passeriformes. Since passerines share the same habitat as poultry, they may be more effective transmitters of the disease to humans than aquatic birds. We analyze 152 passerine species including the American Robin (Turdus migratorius) and Swainson's Thrush (Catharus ustulatus).

Citation

Fuller, Trevon L.; Sassan S. Saatchi; Emily E. Curd; Erin Toffelmier; Henri A. Thomassen; Wolfgang Buermann; David F. DeSante; Mark P. Nott; James F. Saracco; C. J. Ralph; John D. Alexander; John P. Pollinger; Thomas B. Smith. 2010. Mapping the risk of avian influenza in wild birds in the US. BMC Infectious Diseases. 10: 187. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2334-10-187.