Abstract
The past two decades have seen the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) infections that are characterized as extremely contagious, with a high fatality rate in chickens, and humans; this has sparked considerable concerns for global health. Generally, the new variant of the HPAI virus crossed into various countries through wild bird migration, and persisted in the local environment through the interactions between wild and farmed birds. Nevertheless, no studies have found informative cases associated with connecting local persistence and long-range dispersal. During the 2016–2017 HPAI H5N6 epidemic in South Korea, we observed several waterfowls with avian influenza infection under telemetric monitoring. Based on the telemetry records and surveillance data, we conducted a case study to test hypotheses related to the transmission pathway between wild birds and poultry. One sedentary wildfowl naturally infected with HPAI H5N6, which overlapped with the home range of one migratory bird with H5-specific antibody-positive, showed itself to be phylogenetically close to the isolates from a chicken farm located within its habitat. Our study is the first observational study that provides scientific evidence supporting the hypothesis that the HPAI spillover into poultry farms is caused by local persistence in sedentary birds, in addition to its long-range dispersal by sympatric migratory birds.
Highlights
Over the last decade, the increasing number of poultry holdings around the globe has been severely affected by the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus
We examined the spatiotemporal relationship between one HPAIv H5N6 between one HPAIv H5N6 infected waterfowl and domestic layer farms located within infected waterfowl and domestic layer farms located within the corresponding home range the corresponding home range using cluster and phylogenetic analyses
Behavior net squared displacement (NSD) of those spot-billed ducks indicated one dBBMM, dynamic Brown Bridge Movement model; MCP, minimum convex polygon, sample for HPAI test was taken on 14 December 2016
Summary
The increasing number of poultry holdings around the globe has been severely affected by the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus. In the expected emergence of a novel HPAI virus epidemic, it is crucial to identify potential transmission mechanisms of HPAI in poultry holdings to develop an intervention strategy. Wild waterfowls are a natural reservoir of the avian influenza virus (AIv), and play a primary role in the dispersion of the virus across the nation’s poultry holdings. A previous study highlighted that sedentary waterfowl species play an essential role in the local persistence of HPAIv and transmission to domestic poultry [2]. Another study estimated that the mean of the infectious period for the HPAI virus in a long-distance flying migrant is only 5–15 days per year [4], indicating that migratory birds have a biological limitation in directly delivering the virus to domestic poultry
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