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First posted online 15 November 2001 ARTICLE ABSTRACT
Rec 2 August 2001; Acc 2 November 2001 DOI: 10.1099/vir.0.18036-0

H3N2 influenza viruses from domestic chickens in Italy: an increasing role for chickens in the ecology of influenza?

Laura Campitelli,1 Concetta Fabiani,1 Simona Puzelli,1 Alessandro Fioretti,2 Emanuela Foni,3 Alessandra De Marco,4 Scott Krauss,5 Robert G. Webster5 and Isabella Donatelli1

1 Department of Virology, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Viale Regina Elena 299, 00161 Rome, Italy
2 Avian Influenza Reference Centre, University 'Federico II', 80014 Naples, Italy
3 Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale, 43100 Parma, Italy
4 Istituto Nazionale della Fauna Selvatica, 40064 Ozzano Emilia, Bologna, Italy
5 Department of Virology and Molecular Biology, St Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN 38105-2794, USA

In Italy, multiple H3N2 influenza viruses were isolated from chickens with mild respiratory disease and were shown to replicate in the respiratory tracts of experimentally infected chickens; this finding is the first to show that H3N2 influenza viruses can replicate and cause disease in chickens. H3N2 influenza viruses in pigs on nearby farms seemed a likely source of the virus; however, antigenic and molecular analyses revealed that the gene segments of the viruses in chickens were mainly of Eurasian avian origin and were distinguishable from those isolated from pigs and wild aquatic birds in Italy. Thus, several different H3 influenza viruses were circulating in Italy, but we failed to identify the source of the chicken H3N2 influenza viruses that have disappeared subsequently from Italian poultry. Until recently, the transmission of influenza viruses (other than the H5 and H7 subtypes) from their reservoir in aquatic birds to chickens was rarely detected and highly pathogenic and non-pathogenic viruses were considered to be restricted to poultry species. However, the recent reports of the transmission of H9N2 and H5N1 influenza viruses to chickens in Hong Kong and, subsequently, to humans and our findings of the transmission of H3N2 influenza viruses to domestic chickens in Italy suggest an increased role for chickens as an intermediate host in the ecology of influenza.

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© 2002 SGM

This article is now available in the September 2001 print issue of JGV (vol. 83, 413–420). The complete issue of the journal may be seen in electronic form on JGV Online.