Molecular surveillance of avian influenza A viruses in Basrah and Wasit

Abstract

The aim of this study was to detect influenza A virus in broiler chickens and wild ducks in different geographical regions of Basrah and Wasit provinces, Iraq. This study was authenticated by analysing the viral genome and designing a set of universal primers for the detection of all influenza A subtypes in a single enzymatic reaction through the amplification of a highly conserved region of viral M gene. A total of 157 and 155 oropharyngeal and cloacal swabs from broiler chickens and wild ducks, respectively, were analysed. The study shows that influenza A viruses were prevalent in these birds in all study regions with a significantly higher percentage in wild ducks compared to broiler chickens. The results showed that 92/157 samples (54/75 wild ducks and 38/82 broiler chickens) and 96/155 samples (38/75 wild ducks and 58/80 broiler chickens) in Basrah and Wasit, respectively, were positive for the viral M gene. In addition, there was no significant difference in virus prevalence between Basrah and Wasit provinces.

Monitoring of aquatic birds and surveillance of avian influenza and Newcastle disease of waterfowls at the National Park of Urmia Lake

“…(2010) from 5 provinces of Iran but much lesser than isolated from the central region of Iran (Majidzadeh et al., 2012). Comparison of our results with those reported from the neighbouring countries revealed that the number of positive cases in our study was less than that recently reported from Iraq (Al‐Badry & Al‐Mubarak, 2020), Turkey (Onmuş, 2008) and Pakistan (Khawaja et al., 2005) but a little more than that reported from Ukraine (Muzyka et al., 2019). However, the important point is that a percentage of waterfowl and migratory birds in the Urmia Lake Basin contains the influenza virus, and this percentage, no matter how small it was (Table 5), is considered a potential threat to native poultry in rural and industrial poultry farms around the shores of Lake Urmia as previously emphasised (Fallah‐Mehrabadi et al., 2016).…”

“…Although as a preferred specimens site, the cloaca area is more likely to be sampled and the AI viruses may be isolated (Al‐Badry & Al‐Mubarak, 2020; Killian, 2020; Löndt & Alexander, 2016; OIE, 2021a,b; Spackman & Suarez, 2016), but 3 of 5 positive AIV samples of this study (Table 5) were oropharyngeal (OP) swab samples as previously used (Ssematimba et al., 2018), and this episode could be contributed to different phases in the influenza virus infection process (Germeraad et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2019) indicating that oropharyngeal swab samples like cloaca swab samples contribute to the detection of positive birds, and neither should be neglected (Fereidouni et al., 2010). The percentage of positive cases for AIV observed during this study (Table 5) is a little higher than the results obtained by Fereidouni et al.…”

“…Regarding the necessity of surveillance program, it has been reported that a continuous molecular epidemiological surveillance of AI virus in wild migratory birds is necessary to assess genetic variation within each of the HA subtypes of AIV and to quantify the extent of putative HA gene circulating in the regions (Piaggio et al., 2012). As some of the migratory birds not only still are a main natural reservoir of AIV (Al‐Badry & Al‐Mubarak, 2020; Poulson & Brown, 2020) but also play a major role in the evolution, maintenance, and spread of AI viruses to different regions (Machalaba et al., 2015; Muzyka et al., 2019). On the other hand, the presence of high intensified industrial poultry farms around the Urmia Lake (Figure 2a–f) makes this area one of the high priority strategically target geographical migratory flyway areas for continuous globally coordinated surveillance programs in AI risk‐based map to monitor AIV for understanding the potential risk for the incursion of AI into backyard birds, poultry farms and pose potential public health pandemic threats (Abdollahi et al., 2020; Akpinar & Saatci, 2006; Fallah‐Mehrabadi et al., 2019; Hassan et al., 2020; Poulson & Brown, 2020; Verhagen et al., 2021).…”

“…The RT (cDNA synthesis) and PCR conditions were one cycle at 50 • C for 30 min, one cycle at 95 • C for 15 min, 40 cycles at 94 • C for 10 s (denaturation), 40 cycles at 58 • C for 30 s (annealing) and 40 cycles at 72 • C for 10 s (extension) followed by one cycle at 72 • C for 7 min(Wise et al, 2004). Samples were analysed by electrophoresis on 2% agarose gels(Al-Badry & Al-Mubarak, 2020;Okpanachi et al, 2020).…”

Molecular identification of the common viral respiratory viruses in backyard chickens in Basrah, Southern Iraq

“…The conventional reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method was used to detect the presence of the 3 viruses in the study. For the AIV, a pair of universal primers was used to detect any possible type of the virus [15]. Regarding the other 2 viruses, IBV and NDV, the gene-specific primers were designed using the National Center for Biotechnology Information.…”