A Review of Evidence that Equine Influenza Viruses Are Zoonotic

Abstract

Among scientists, there exist mixed opinions whether equine influenza viruses infect man. In this report, we summarize a 2016 systematic and comprehensive review of the English, Chinese, and Mongolian scientific literature regarding evidence for equine influenza virus infections in man. Searches of PubMed, Web of Knowledge, ProQuest, CNKI, Chongqing VIP Database, Wanfang Data and MongolMed yielded 2831 articles, of which 16 met the inclusion criteria for this review. Considering these 16 publications, there was considerable experimental and observational evidence that at least H3N8 equine influenza viruses have occasionally infected man. In this review we summarize the most salient scientific reports.

Molecular Epidemiology of the Two Internal Genes of Equine Influenza H3N8 Virus Isolated in Pakistan 2015-16

“…It suggests that internal genes of these equine influenza H3N8 viruses might have been transmitted to the equines population from backyard poultry, also supported by the previous findings of Tai et al (2016). They reported H9N2 outbreaks in equines and canines in China in 2012 consecutively circulating for two years.…”

Animal influenza virus infections in humans: A commentary

“…More recently, our study of individuals with horse exposure in Iowa showed evidence of previous EIV infection compared to controls with no equine exposure (Larson et al, 2015). Since EIV infection in humans causing severe disease has not been recently observed (Xie et al, 2016), our review of these available data regarding zoonotic transmission of EIVs suggests that while EIVs have the potential to infect humans, the risk is low.…”

The continual threat of influenza virus infections at the human–animal interface

“…Environments that facilitate IAV include birds [ 12 ], pigs [ 13 ], horses [ 14 ], dogs [ 15 ] and most recently bats [ 16 ]. In particular, aquatic birds are considered the primordial reservoir of all influenza viruses for avian and mammalian species.…”