National Lab Confirms H3N2 As Virus Behind Chicago Outbreak

The two paragraphs below represent an April 20, 2015 update to the news release issued by the Cornell Media Relations Office on April 12, 2015.

The genome sequence of an influenza virus, cultured from a canine nasal swab sample from a dog with respiratory disease in the Chicago area, confirms that an Asian H3N2 virus is circulating, consistent with neuraminidase typing performed at the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory and preliminary sequence information obtained by the [Animal Health Diagnostics Center] lab at Cornell, both on April 10th.

Scientists at the National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) in Ames, Iowa completed the sequence analysis on April 15 for a virus isolated at Cornell on April 9. All eight genome segments of the virus match closely (99% identity) with viruses isolated from dogs and cats from South Korea. This suggests that the virus likely came from this geographic region, but not necessarily from South Korea. The virus sequenced shows no evidence of reassortment with Canine H3N8 viruses or any North American H3N2 avian influenza viruses. The Asian-origin canine H3N2 influenza virus is also distinct from human seasonal A(H3N2) influenza viruses. … Sequences will be accessioned in GenBank as soon as possible and made available to the general community.

Short URL: http://caninechronicle.com/?p=75994

Posted by chesliepickett on Apr 22 2015. Filed under Breaking News, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.