Epidemiologic and Surveillance Studies on Avian Influenza in Live-Bird Markets in New York and New Jersey, 2001

Abstract

In 2001, all 109 retail live-bird markets (LBMs) in New York and New Jersey were surveyed for the presence of avian influenza virus (AIV) by a real time reverse transcriptase/polymer chain reaction assay (RRT/PCR) and results compared to virus isolation (VI) in embryonating chicken eggs. The RRT/PCR had a 91.9% sensitivity and 97.9% specificity in detecting presence of AIV at the market level. However, the sensitivity at the sample level is 65.87%. The RRT/PCR is a reliable method to identify AIV at the market level. In addition, a cross-sectional epidemiologic study of the LBMs showed that, during the past 12 months, markets that were open 7 days per week and those that also sold rabbits had the highest risk for being positive for AIV. Markets that were closed one or more days per week and those that performed daily cleaning and disinfecting had the lowest risk for being AIV positive.

Effect of Interventions on Influenza A (H9N2) Isolation in Hong Kong’s Live Poultry Markets, 1999–2005

“…Analysis of the data by calendar day (Figure 4) confi rmed earlier results (3,17) that rest-days led to an immediate decline in positive isolates by interrupting the amplifi cation cycle. Our fi ndings further suggest that the effect of very low isolation rates can likely be sustained for up to 2 weeks, although we caution that we had little data during the second week to provide defi nitive support to this observation (online Technical Appendix and Figure 4).…”

Incidence of Avian Flu Shocks on Poor Household Livelihoods of Poultry Farmers in Africa

“…Increasing density of poultry is associated with a higher contact rate between susceptible and infected birds and therefore greater risk of spread [29][30][31][32][33][34]. However, no association was found between poultry density and the risk of HPAIV infection in China, suggesting that this unexpected finding was due to a greater proportion of industrialized chicken production at higher poultry densities, with associated higher biosecurity standards and vaccination protocols.…”

“…Presence of poultry markets or cities : Increasing density of cities are associated with higher demand for poultry products and therefore the presence of trading areas providing live or freshly slaughtered birds. These are consequently high risk zones [34,[35][36][37][38][39].…”

Transmission of H6N2 wild bird-origin influenza A virus among multiple bird species in a stacked-cage setting

“…For example, multiple LBMs are present in the northeastern U.S. [4], various locations in California, and other regions of the U.S. [24]; these markets persist in part due to people's preference for fresh animals [5,19]. These types of markets are also common in other regions of the world, such as Asia and Africa [1,21], and often exist in these areas for the same reason listed above [1,19], as well as due to limited capacities for refrigeration and frozen storage in some locations [6].…”