Influenza Virus Infection in Nonhuman Primates - - Emerging Infectious Disease journal - CDC

full-text ►
Influenza Virus Infection in Nonhuman Primates - - Emerging Infectious Disease journal - CDC

Table of Contents
Volume 18, Number 9–October 2012

Dispatch

Influenza Virus Infection in Nonhuman Primates

Article Contents

• The Study
• Conclusions
• Acknowledgments
• References
• Figure 1
• Figure 2
• Table 1
• Table 2
• Suggested Citation

Erik A. Karlsson, Gregory A. Engel, M.M. Feeroz, Sorn San, Aida Rompis, Benjamin P. Y.-H. Lee, Eric Shaw, Gunwha Oh, Michael A. Schillaci, Richard Grant, John Heidrich, Stacey Schultz-Cherry, and Lisa Jones-Engel 

Author affiliations: St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, USA (E.A. Karlsson, S. Schultz-Cherry); University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA (G.A. Engel, G. Oh, L. Jones-Engel); Swedish Cherry Hill Family Medicine, Seattle (G.A. Engel); Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Bangladesh (M.M. Feeroz); National Veterinary Research Institute, Phnom Penh, Cambodia (S. San); University of Udayana, Bali, Indonesia (A. Rompis); Nature Parks, Singapore (B.P.Y.-H. Lee); Gibraltar Ornithological and Natural History Society, Gibraltar (E. Shaw); University of Toronto Scarborough, Ontario, Canada (M.A. Schillaci); and Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratory, Phnom Penh (R. Grant, J. Heidrich)

Suggested citation for this article

Abstract

To determine whether nonhuman primates are infected with influenza viruses in nature, we conducted serologic and swab studies among macaques from several parts of the world. Our detection of influenza virus and antibodies to influenza virus raises questions about the role of nonhuman primates in the ecology of influenza.

Worldwide, infections with influenza A viruses are associated with substantial illness and death among mammals and birds. Public health and research have placed major focus on understanding the pathogenicity of different influenza virus strains and characterizing new influenza vaccines. Nonhuman primates (NHPs), including macaques, have become popular experimental models for studying the pathogenesis and immunology of seasonal and emerging influenza viruses. NHPs readily seroconvert after experimental inoculation with seasonal influenza virus and have been used to test candidate vaccines for strains of human and avian origin. Like humans, macaques infected with influenza virus exhibit fever, malaise, nasal discharge, and nonproductive cough; virus replication can be detected in the nasal passages and respiratory tract (1,2). However, whether NHPs are infected with influenza viruses in nature remains unknown.