Prevalence and risk factor for H9N2 avian influenza virus in poultry retail shops of Madhya Pradesh

Baleshwari Dixit; H V Murugkar; S Nagarajan; C Tosh; Manoj Kumar; Anubha Pathak; Sivasankar Panickan; Neeraj Shrivastav; Anjani K Mishra; Manu Dixit

doi:10.1007/s13337-024-00865-y

Prevalence and risk factor for H9N2 avian influenza virus in poultry retail shops of Madhya Pradesh

Virusdisease. 2024 Jun;35(2):321-328. doi: 10.1007/s13337-024-00865-y. Epub 2024 May 16.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Veterinary Public Health and Epidemiology, College of Veterinary Science & A. H., Kuthulia, Rewa, M.P. 486001 India.
² National High Security Animal Disease Laboratory, Bhopal, M.P. India.
³ ICAR-National Research Centre on Equines, Hisar, India.
⁴ Department of Veterinary Microbiology, College of Veterinary Science & A. H., Rewa, M.P. India.
⁵ Department of Livestock Production and Management, College of Veterinary Science & A. H., Rewa, M.P. India.
⁶ Department Animal Husbandry and Dairying Department, Rewa, M.P. India.

PMID: 39071868
PMCID: PMC11269534 (available on 2025-06-01)
DOI: 10.1007/s13337-024-00865-y

Abstract

H9N2 avian Influenza virus subtype is highly neglected but have the potential to emerge as a next pandemic influenza virus, by either itself evolution or through the donation of genes to other subtype. So to understand the extent of H9N2 virus prevalence and associated risk factors in poultry of retail shops and their surrounding environment a cross sectional study was carried out. A total of 500 poultry tissue and 700 environmental samples were collected from 20 district of Madhya Pradesh. Virus isolation was carried out in egg inoculation and harvested allantoic fluid was tested for HA and further molecular confirmation of subtypes by RT-PCR using H9 specific primers. Prevalence was calculated and positive samples were statistically associated with observed risk factors using univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis. A total of 9.4% and 9.7% prevalence in tissue samples and environmental samples has been reported respectively and out of 20 districts 10 (50%) were found positive for the virus. Out of 21 studied risk factors only two risk factors named as "keeping total number birds slaughtered per day" and "procuring birds from wholesaler" were found significantly associated with the H9N2 positivity in multivariate logistic regression analysis. This high level of H9N2 positivity in birds with no clinical manifestations providing a great opportunity for avian influenza virus for amplification, co-infection in other animals like dogs, cats, pigs and in human through genetic re-assortment that may lead to emergence of a novel influenza virus with high zoonotic potential.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13337-024-00865-y.

Keywords: Avian influenza virus; Emergence; H9N2 poultry; Prevalence; Risk factors.

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