Circulation of abnormal isolates of H13 subtype influenza virus among wild water birds

Abstract

The ecology, epidemiology and evolution of avian influenza A viruses in wild birds is still poorly understood due to the extreme complexity caused by the multiple host species of the virus, which are difficult to study during the annual cycle of host development and possible infection by several virus subtypes. A key component is understanding the genetic relationships of individual avian influenza subtypes, which makes it possible to track the origin of new isolates or changes in the causes of their pathogenicity. The purpose of our research was to study the circulation of avian influenza subtypes atypical for wild waterfowl, conduct research into their genetic structure, and search for related viruses to determine the origin of Ukrainian isolates. According to the results of the research, an isolate of avian influenza A with hemagglutinin H13 subtype was isolated from atypical hosts for this species — representatives of the order Anseriformes (the common shelduck, Tadorna tadorna). When conducting a phylogenetic analysis of the regions of the hemagglutinin and neuraminidase genes, their similarity to the isolates isolated from common martins in the Netherlands was proven to be 97.8% and 98.24%, respectively, and further down the degree of homology