Abstract
Surveillance on Avian Influenza Virus in Egypt during 2012 - 2013 was undertaken to update the epidemiology of avian influenza virus infections among poultry flocks in Egypt. A total of 148 commercial chicken farms were tested by single-plex RT-PCR for direct detection of avian influenza viruses using type A specific nucleoprotein (NP) gene primer sets. The results revealed 5 positive chicken flocks infected with type-A AIV. These viruses were successfully isolated and propagated in SPF eggs. H5N1/HI test was positive only for three chicken flocks. Subtype specific (RTPCR) revealed 3 positive H5 chicken flocks (2%) and 2 positive H9 chicken flocks (1.35%). All examined chicken flocks were negative for H7 subtype. Multiplex RT-PCR using H5, H7 and H9 subtypes specific primers confirmed these results. This shows the continuous co-circulation of the AIV H5 and H9 in commercial chicken flocks in Egypt complicating the respiratory problems in affected flocks.
Highlights
Devastating highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus infection was first recorded in Egypt in mid-February 2006 in infected commercial poultry production sectors and backyards causing great socioeconomic losses in poultry industry [1,2,3,4,5,6]
Tracheal swabs were screened with RTPCR for avian influenza virus (AIV) detection, but cloacal swabs in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) with antibiotics were subjected for virus isolation
Hemagglutination (HA) and hem-agglutination inhibition (HI) test were performed for AIV H5 subtype identification following (OIE terrestrial manual) [17,18] using H5N1 specific antiserum
Summary
Devastating highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus infection was first recorded in Egypt in mid-February 2006 in infected commercial poultry production sectors and backyards causing great socioeconomic losses in poultry industry [1,2,3,4,5,6]. In Egypt, influenza viruses other than H5N1 subtypes were isolated as H3N1, H4N1 [8], H7N1 [9], H7N7 [10] and recently H9N2 [11,12,13]. Egypt declared endemic for H5N1 to the OIE and new cases in birds and humans are notified [14]. This endemic situation of H5N1 in Egypt may be associated to wild and migratory birds, the intensive poultry production, backyard poultry raising and the wide geographical distribution of live poultry market in Egypt. Thereafter, multiplex RT-PCR using H5, H7 and H9 subtypes specific primers was performed for subtyping of the isolated virus
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