Hyeok-Il Kwon, Eun-Ha Kim, Young-Il Kim, Su-Jin Park, Young-Jae Si, In-Won Lee, Hiep Dinh Nguyen, Kwang Min Yu, Min-Ah Yu, Ju Hwan Jung, Won-Suk Choi, Jin Jung Kwon, Su Jeong Ahn, Yun Hee Baek, Dam Van Lai, Ok-Jun Lee, Si-Wook Kim, Min-Suk Song, Sun-Woo Yoon, Chul-Joong Kim, Richard J Webby, In-Pil Mo, Young Ki Choi
Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H5N6) and A(H5N8) virus infections resulted in the culling of more than 37 million poultry in the Republic of Korea during the 2016/17 winter season. Here we characterize two representative viruses, A/Environment/Korea/W541/2016 [Em/W541(H5N6)] and A/Common Teal/Korea/W555/2017 [CT/W555(H5N8)], and evaluate their zoonotic potential in various animal models. Both Em/W541(H5N6) and CT /W555(H5N8) are novel reassortants derived from various gene pools of wild bird viruses present in migratory waterfowl arising from eastern China...
March 14, 2018: Emerging Microbes & Infections