Project Number: 6612-32000-048-26
Project Type: Reimbursable

Start Date: Aug 01, 2008
End Date: Aug 31, 2010

Objective:
1. Investigate modified simple slaughter methods to reduce aerosol generation during home slaughter process and determine the impact of such improvements on reducing virus transmission. 2. Improved methods of evaluating vaccine efficacy in poultry AI vaccines. 3. Determining infectivity, transmissibility, and pathogenicity of 5 isolates of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV) for pigs.

Approach:
Aerosol generation and virus levels will be measured in rooms conducting simulated home processing of asymptomatic H5N1 HPAI virus infected chickens. A simple, plastic-bag method for processing will be evaluated for reducing aerosol and virus generation and reducing transmission to chicken and ferret models. Develop attenuated H5 AI viruses that will be used to produce reference antibodies from chickens for testing cross neutralization of H5 HPAI viruses in a chicken egg neutralizing test as a means to assess vaccines seed strain efficacy against drift variant field viruses. Five H5N1 HPAI viruses will be intrabronchally inoculated into pigs and examined for contact transmission. Pigs will be examined for infection by serology, virus isolation, and RRT-PCR assays.