In this study, the virucidal efficacy of a fumigant (35% paraformaldehyde) against avian influenza virus (AIV) was examined. After AIV suspensions had been deposited on stainless steel carriers, the dried carriers were exposed to the fumigant in a 300-m3 test room for 3 h. Thereafter, all carriers were submerged in a neutralizing solution to scrape off the surviving viruses, and the respective suspensions were diluted. Each dilution factor was respectively inoculated into the allantoic membrane of five 10-day-old embryos. After incubation, AIV viability in the collected allantoic fluids was examined and the EID50 was calculated. The fumigant inactivated ≥5.7log10EID50 of AIV and was nontoxic to the embryos.

The efficacy of chemical disinfectants is reduced owing to the inactivation of active ingredients after dilution. This study investigated the effect of time on the efficacy of six different disinfectants, after dilution, against avian influenza virus. When used at the recommended concentration, most disinfectants showed efficacy at a high concentrations in the presence of organic materials immediately after dilution, while sodium dichloroisocyanurate-based products, after dilution, showed reduced efficacy over time at low concentrations in the absence of organic materials. Most disinfectants were neutralized by organic materials; however, this could be compensated for by increasing the product dosage. For successful decontamination in farms, disinfectants should be used at high concentrations in accordance with the manufacturers’ recommendations. Furthermore, the presence of organic materials must be taken into consideration, and diluted disinfectant solution should be prepared no more than a day before use.

This study describes the national program of year-round surveillance and monitoring for avian influenza (AI). The validity of the epidemiologically-based surveillance scheme was assessed. Korea’s current surveillance program is aimed at detecting subclinical infection of either the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus or the low pathogenic avian influenza virus, types H5 and H7, both of which carry risk of converting to HPAI. The current AI surveillance program has demonstrated that implementing a surveillance strategy is plausible. Farmer and livestock related professional support is the critical step of specimen collection to discover hidden infection. Early detection of AI virus infection can achieve best by the combined efforts of farmers, animal health authorities, and other related industries.

Matrix 2 protein ectodomain (M2e) of influenza virus appears to be a promising vaccine candidate because its sequence is highly conserved among virus strains. However, M2e is too meager to induce a strong immune response by itself. Several approaches are being used to increase the antigenicity of M2e. In an effort to enhance the M2e-specific immune response, we generated a TAT-conjugated M2e recombinant protein. Seven-week-old BALB/c mice were divided into three groups and transcutaneously immunized with 100 μg TAT-8×M2e (TAT conjugated with eight copies of M2e) and 8×M2e (eight copies of M2e) proteins on days 1, 15 and 29. The control mice were injected with PBS on the same days. Antibody titers specific for M2e were measured using indirect ELISA. Mice immunized with the TAT-8×M2e and 8×M2e proteins developed almost the same levels of M2e-specific total IgG and IgG1 antibodies. However, a higher level of M2e-specific IgG2a was observed in mice immunized with TAT-8×M2e than in those immunized with 8×M2e. These results suggest that TAT has an adjuvant effect that induces a Th1-type immune response. Therefore, the TAT-M2e vaccine can be applied to animals as a new influenza vaccine for enhancement of Th1-type immune responses.

In the past four years, outbreaks of acute respiratory diseases associated with canine influenza H3N2 viruses in dogs and cats have been reported in South Korea and China. For prevention of disease from spread of the disease and for administration of timely medical treatments, including countermeasures for quarantine, use of a rapid and highly sensitive detection method are important to detection of the causative viruses. This study was conducted in order to develop a real time RT-PCR for the H3N2 subtype. It was based on primers targeting the highly homologous sequences of matrix, hemagglutinin, and neuraminidase genes. The detection limit of real time RT-PCR was 10 copies/ul with matrix and hemagglutinin genes, and 1 copy with neuraminidase genes, respectively. This real time RT-PCR was as sensitive as virus isolation in 52 clinical samples. The detection system developed in this study might provide more rapid and highly sensitive results than commercial rapid kits based on immunochromatographic assay.

The influenza virus is an important respiratory risk affecting humans, and effective treatments are needed. Some oriental medicines are currently applied for treatment of common colds as well as influenza infection. Previous studies have reported that the therapeutic properties of MA-128 are effective for treatment of psoriasis antiasthmatic and atopic dermatitis. In this study, we investigated the therapeutic properties of the novel herbal medicine, MA-128, for treatment of influenza virus infection by oral administration. MA-128 is an active natural biological compound from herbal-marine origin. The results showed that oral administration of MA-128 in mice could confer a survival benefit against Type A influenza virus infection. Daily oral administration of MA-128 resulted in delayed death in infected mice for three days against mouse adapted H3N2 (A/Philippines/2/82). However, it protected more than 60% of mice from lethal infection of 2009 pandemic H1N1 (A/Korea/CJ01/2009) influenza virus. In addition, lung viral titers were significantly reduced at seven days post infection (~100 times) compared with mock-treated mice and viruses were cleared at 9 dpi only in the MA-128 treated groups. This study demonstrated the potential of the novel herbal medicine, MA-128, as an herbal remedy against influenza A viruses.

During the past dozens of years, animal species indigenous to Korea has been emerged as a symbol of healthy and well-being lifestyle. Developing new cross hybrid and making brand in Korean native chickens serve as an example of pursuing a well-being life. However, lack of systematic management. intervention from the small scaled middlemen during the multi-stages of marketing, poor hygiene at moorings and live bird market, and possibility of contacting to wild birds have been pointed out as risk factors to the outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza ([1PM), especially for small back yard flocks. This study describes the schema of husbandry and marketing on Korean native chickens, and their putative associations with the outbreaks of RPM during the last two big epidemics occurred in the Republic of Korea, which were in the year of 2008 and 2010/2011.

Highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV) is already panzootic in poultry and caused a considerable economic loss in poultry industry. In addition, HPAIV continues to cross species barriers to infect humans and other mammals, often with fatal outcomes. In this study, the virucidal efficacy of Citra-Kill® composed to quaternary ammonium chloride and citric acid was investigated against avian influenza H9N2 virus (AIV). A virucidal efficacy was determined with the viability of AIV contacted with the disinfectant in the allantoic membrane of chicken embryos. Citra-Kill® and AIV was reacted on the distilled water (DW), hard water (HW) or organic matter suspension (OM) condition. On DW condition, AIV was inactivated with 2,000 fold dilutions of Citra-Kill®. When the antiviral effect on HW condition was evaluated, the antiviral activity of the disinfectant showed on 1,500 fold dilutions against AIV. With the investigation of the antiviral effect of the disinfectant on OM condition, AIV was inactivated on 500 fold dilutions of Citra-Kill®. As Citra-Kill® possesses virucidal efficacy against AIV, the disinfectant solution can be used to limit the spread of animal viral diseases.

Avian influenza (AI) and Newcastle disease (ND) distress a variety of avian species, especially domestic poultry. Severe syndromes are caused by highly virulent specific virus strains termed highly pathogenic AI and velogenic ND viruses, which are potential agrobioterrorism agents. This outbreak emphasizes the need for continuing cooperation between public health and veterinary medical communities in controlling AI and ND when it has a zoonotic potential. Up to date, the stamping out and burying system were applied for controlling methods against these highly infectious diseases in the ordinary way, however these methods had many environmental problems, including leachat and effluvium. Thus, we assessed that sterilization effect of AI and ND virus dependent on several treatment conditions, such as autoclaving time and cutting types of chicken. As a result, we found that the cutting type of chicken meat revealed a reduced HA titer (20) against both of AI and ND virus after 10 min of autoclaving, while whole chicken showed same titer after 30 and 60 min. Therefore, we propose that the conditions of treatment on infected chicken should be developed for convenient, affordable, and effective prevention methods against for AI and ND.

Korea had experienced second epidemic highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), and there were the seven affected farms, including two breeder duck farms, from 22nd November 2006 to 6th March 2007. Here, we reported the clinico-pathological characteristics of domestic breeder ducks farms naturally infected with HPAI virus (H5N1). Clinically, the most ducks showed various signs from depression, decreased egg production and feed consumption to even, death. The most commonly gross changes were hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, petechial and ecchymotic hemorrhage on the liver surface, a white stripe on the cardiac muscle, and severely hemorrhagic and deformed eggs. The most significant histopathological changes were necrosis of various cells such as neuron, lymphocytes, cardiac myocytes, hepatocytes, blood vessels and pancreatic acinar epithelium. The viral antigen was mainly detected in the endothelium of blood vessels of various organs and tissues, peripheral nerves and neuronal cells. Based on the above results, we identified that HPAI H5N1 induced systemic infection in the adult breeder ducks.

Influenza virus infection is a zoonosis that results in high mortality in animals and humans. Several recent avian influenza outbreaks have posed a significant public health threat to humans because there have been many cases of direct interspecies transmission from birds to humans. Influenza virus infection causes acute respiratory failure, which is the main cause of death, while chronic influenza virus infection in the central nervous system results in neural dysfunction. Of particular interest, according to one report, a group of patients who recovered from influenza virus infection during pandemics showed neuropsychiatric disorders, including depression, schizophrenia, and Parkinsonism. Thus, study of the etiology of neuropsychiatric disorders caused by influenza virus infection is needed. In order to conduct necessary experiments, it is essential to reproduce neurological phenomena that are manifested by human patients who have recovered from influenza virus infection using laboratory animals. In this review, we will discuss some of the facts that should be considered when establishing an animal model for study of central nervous system responses to influenza virus infection using mice.

Since there had been the first human outbreak of novel influenza A/H1N1 in Mexico, it has become pandemic throughout the world. In the Republic of Korea, the first human case was on May, 2009 and National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service (NVRQS) has started monitoring novel influenza A/H1N1 on domestic swine farms. The first positive case was detected on 14, Dec, 2009 and until now, we have had total 17 positive cases. From the first case, we did epidemiological investigation on introduction and transmission of virus to pigs. We have concluded that virus had been introduced from humans to pigs, possibly from October to November, 2009 in our country. There were direct and indirect factors including the vehicles transporting veterinary medicine, feed, etc. related to transmission of virus from farm to farm. However, breeding pigs seem to be extrinsic to transmitting factors. Upon the epidemiological investigation, the off-limits of visitors to farms and the disinfection is thought to be critical for blocking the introduction and transmission of novel influenza A/H1N1. In addition, collecting and analyzing the genetic informations of influenza virus is important for predicting and handling the new pandemic influenza in the future.