OBJECTIVES AND METHODS: An epidemiological surveillance study was conducted from Oct 2015 to April 2016 to investigate the outbreak. EI virus strains were isolated in embryonated eggs from suspected equines swab samples and were subjected to genome sequencing using M13 tagged segment specific primers. Phylogenetic analyses of the nucleotide sequences were concluded using Geneious. Haemagglutinin (HA), Neuraminidase (NA), Matrix (M) and nucleoprotein (NP) genes nucleotide and amino acid sequences of the isolated viruses were aligned with those of OIE recommended, FC-1, FC-2, and contemporary isolates of influenza A viruses from other species.
RESULTS: HA and NA genes amino acid sequences were very similar to Tennessee/14 and Malaysia/15 of FC-1 and clustered with the contemporary isolates recently reported in the USA. Phylogenetic analysis showed that these viruses were mostly identical (with 99.6% and 97.4% nucleotide homology) to, and were reassortants containing chicken/Pakistan/14 (H7N3) and Canine/Beijing/10 (H3N2) like M and NP genes. Genetic analysis indicated that A/equine/Pakistan/16 viruses were most probably the result of several re-assortments between the co-circulating avian and equine viruses, and were genetically unlike the other equine viruses due to the presence of H7N3 or H3N2 like M and NP genes.
CONCLUSION: Epidemiological data analysis indicated the potential chance of mixed, and management such as mixed farming system by keeping equine, canine and backyard poultry together in confined premises as the greater risk factors responsible for the re-assortments. Other factors might have contributed to the spread of the epidemic, including low awareness level, poor control of equine movements, and absence of border control disease strategies.
METHODS AND FINDINGS: Our approach is based on a parsimonious mathematical model of disease transmission and only requires data collected through routine surveillance and standard case investigations. We apply it to assess the transmissibility of swine-origin influenza A H3N2v-M virus in the US, Nipah virus in Malaysia and Bangladesh, and also present a non-zoonotic example (cholera in the Dominican Republic). Estimation is based on two simple summary statistics, the proportion infected by the natural reservoir among detected cases (G) and among the subset of the first detected cases in each cluster (F). If detection of a case does not affect detection of other cases from the same cluster, we find that R can be estimated by 1-G; otherwise R can be estimated by 1-F when the case detection rate is low. In more general cases, bounds on R can still be derived.
CONCLUSIONS: We have developed a simple approach with limited data requirements that enables robust assessment of the risks posed by emerging zoonoses. We illustrate this by deriving transmissibility estimates for the H3N2v-M virus, an important step in evaluating the possible pandemic threat posed by this virus. Please see later in the article for the Editors' Summary.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this study, aptamer-antibody complementation was implemented on a multiwalled carbon nanotube-gold conjugated sensing surface with a dielectrode to detect pandemic pdmH1N1. Preliminary biomolecular and dielectrode surface analyses were performed by molecular and microscopic methods. A stable anti-pdmH1N1 aptamer sequence interacted with hemagglutinin (HA) and was compared with the antibody interaction. Both aptamer and antibody attachments on the surface as the basic molecule attained the saturation at nanomolar levels.
RESULTS: Aptamers were found to have higher affinity and electric response than antibodies against HA of pdmH1N1. Linear regression with aptamer-HA interaction displays sensitivity in the range of 10 fM, whereas antibody-HA interaction shows a 100-fold lower level (1 pM). When sandwich-based detection of aptamer-HA-antibody and antibody-HA-aptamer was performed, a higher response of current was observed in both cases. Moreover, the detection strategy with aptamer clearly discriminated the closely related HA of influenza B/Tokyo/53/99 and influenza A/Panama/2007/1999 (H3N2).
CONCLUSION: The high performance of the abovementioned detection methods was supported by the apparent specificity and reproducibility by the demonstrated sensing system.