Evidence of pandemic H1N1 influenza exposure in dogs and cats, Thailand: A serological survey

Abstract

Influenza A virus causes respiratory disease in both humans and animals. In this study, a survey of influenza A antibodies in domestic dogs and cats was conducted in 47 animal shelters in 19 provinces of Thailand from September 2011 to September 2014. One thousand and eleven serum samples were collected from 932 dogs and 79 cats. Serum samples were tested for influenza A antibodies using a multi‐species competitive NP‐ELISA and haemagglutination inhibition (HI) assay. The NP‐ELISA results showed that 0.97% (9/932) of dogs were positive, but all cat samples were negative. The HI test against pandemic H1N1, human H3N2 and canine H3N2 showed that 0.64% (6/932) and 1.20% (1/79) of dogs and cats were positive, respectively. It is noted that all six serum samples (5 dogs and 1 cat) had antibodies against pandemic H1N1. In summary, a serological survey revealed the evidence of pandemic H1N1 influenza exposure in both dogs and cats in the shelters in Thailand.

Influenza Virus Infections in Cats

“…Experimental inoculations confirmed that cats were susceptible to the human H3N2 IAV that induced the “Hong-Kong” influenza pandemic in 1968 [ 20 ]. Furthermore, several studies indicated that, in 2009, cats (and dogs) worldwide could be infected by the H1N1 IAV during the subsequent human influenza pandemic, probably by direct transmission from their owners [ 6 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 ]. In Italy, this virus caused an outbreak of respiratory and gastrointestinal disease in a colony of 90 cats, resulting in 25 deaths [ 18 ].…”

Canine and Feline Influenza

“…A domestic cat was found to be infected with avian influenza in a case in the 1940s and experimental inoculation resulted in infection and disease (Nakamura and Iwasa 1942); surveys of cats for seroconversion to human IAVs in the 1960s and 1970s showed a low level of positive results, indicating some previous infections (Paniker and Nair 1970;Fyson et al 1975;Romváry et al 1975;Onta et al 1978), although experimental inoculation confirmed that cats were susceptible to human strains (Paniker and Nair 1972). Surveillance following the emergence of 2009 H1N1pdm showed a number of infections in cats (including fatalities) for that virus (Löhr et al 2010;Pingret et al 2010;Sponseller et al 2010;Campagnolo et al 2011;Fiorentini et al 2011;McCullers et al 2011;Su et al 2013b;Pigott et al 2014;Zhao et al 2014;Knight et al 2016;Tangwangvivat et al 2019), and experimental inoculations also confirmed susceptibility of cats to that strain (Bao et al 2010;van den Brand et al 2010). Cats are generally at low seroprevalence for other human influenza strains (Ali et al 2011;Zhang et al 2015b;Ibrahim et al 2016).…”

“…Experimental inoculation of dogs with human H3N2 (A/Hong Kong/1/68) also resulted in infection, shed virus, and seroconversion, but with no obvious clinical signs (Paniker and Nair 1972). Following the 2009 human pandemic H1N1 (H1N1pdm), a number of cases of human influenza infection in dogs were documented (Dundon et al 2010;Piccirillo et al 2010;Seiler et al 2010;Said et al 2011;Damiani et al 2012;Yin et al 2014;Su et al 2019;Tangwangvivat et al 2019). Some reassortants between the human H1N1pdm and CIV H3N2 were reported from dogs in South Korea, indicating that there were mixed infections and some onward transmission of those viruses, although only one example of each reassortant has been reported (Song et al 2012;Na et al 2015).…”

Serosurvey of pandemic H1N1 influenza A virus in dogs in Andalusia (southern Spain)

“…38/9891; 0.64%; 6/932) (Chanvatik et al, 2016;Tangwangvivat et al, 2019), Italy (0.7%; 7/964) (Dundon et al, 2010) and northern China (1.5%; 13/882) (Sun et al, 2014). The highest levels of seroprevalence were observed in the USA (4.0%; 43/1082) (Jang et al, 2017), Hong Kong (7.4%; 55/737) (Su et al, 2019) and southern China (20.5%; 393/1920) .…”

“…Furthermore, exposure to this IAV has been detected in different pet animals in several countries (Martínez-Orellana et al, 2015;Tangwangvivat et al, 2019;Zhao et al, 2014). The close contact between companion dogs and humans could be an important interface for the transmission of IAVs with zoonotic potential.…”