Characterization of H9 subtype influenza viruses from the ducks of southern China: a candidate for the next influenza pandemic in humans?

ABSTRACT: A current view of the emergence of pandemic influenza viruses envisages a gene flow from the aquatic avian reservoir to humans via reassortment in pigs, the hypothetical "mixing vessel." Understanding arising from recent H5N1 influenza outbreaks in Hong Kong since 1997 and the isolation of avian H9N2 virus from humans raises alternative options for the emergence of a new pandemic virus. Here we report that H9N2 influenza viruses established in terrestrial poultry in southern China are transmitted back to domestic ducks, in which the viruses generate multiple reassortants. These novel H9N2 viruses are double or even triple reassortants that have amino acid signatures in their hemagglutinin, indicating their potential to directly infect humans. Some of them contain gene segments that are clo

SUBMITTER: Li KS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC156195 | biostudies-literature | 2003 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature