Pablo Plaza, Andrea Santangeli, Tommaso Cancellario, Sergio Lambertucci
<p>In late 2020, the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1) (hereafter, H5N1) fired the most severe panzootic ever recorded, causing alarming mortalities in wildlife and domestic animals, with an increasing risk to humans [<span>1-4</span>]. Almost the entire world has been affected by H5N1; the virus has expanded to new regions such as the Americas and Antarctica for the first time in its evolutionary history [<span>3</span>]. However, no cases of H5N1 have been detected in Oceania to date [<span>5, 6</span>] (only one human case infected outside this continent has been reported [<span>7</span>]). Regions not affected by this virus are of epidemiological importance, as they provide insights about potential limiting factors for its spread (e.g., geographic barriers, environmental features, wild species traits and movement). Moreover, in those areas, there is still time to prepare efficient preventive and mitigation actions to reduce the impact of this pathogen, if we can identify potential pathways of virus arrival. Here, leveraging range maps of suitable host bird species, we suggest a potential pathway of H5N1 arrival to the Oceania region that could be important to consider under the current epidemiological behavior of this virus.</p><p>To assess possible pathways of H5N1 arrival to Oceania (specifically, Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania for this article), we performed a map of risk based on wild bird species already reported as infected by the virus anywhere in the world. These species could be considered suitable hosts of the virus. We integrated a list of H5N1-infected wild bird species reported in the World Animal Health Information System (WAHIS) database up to April 2024 [<span>3</span>] and Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research up to November 2024 (SCAR) [<span>8</span>], with species distributions primarily based on habitat maps (AOH) [<span>9</span>] and, when these were lacking, bird ranges provided by BirdLife International [<span>10</span>]. We removed records in which infected individuals were not identified at the species level and cases where individuals were kept in captivity. We obtained 345 unique wild bird species found infected by H5N1. To map the risk of H5N1 infection (i.e., areas where species reported as infected are distributed), we used the Additive Benefit Function (ABF) in Zonation v.5 [<span>11</span>].</p><p>Our risk map shows that Oceania presents a low risk compared with other regions, because it still does not host many species already reported as infected in the rest of the world (Figure 1A). However, more than 50 species that live in Oceania have already been infected in other regions (Table S1). Many of those species overlap their distributions in most of the coast of Australia and New Zealand, making this region of high risk (Figure 1B). Some key susceptible species reported infected in other regions (e.g., Antarctica and sub-Antarctic islands) such as Brown skuas (<i>Stercorarius antarcticus</i
{"title":"Potential Arrival Pathway for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza H5N1 to Oceania","authors":"Pablo Plaza, Andrea Santangeli, Tommaso Cancellario, Sergio Lambertucci","doi":"10.1111/irv.70055","DOIUrl":"10.1111/irv.70055","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In late 2020, the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1) (hereafter, H5N1) fired the most severe panzootic ever recorded, causing alarming mortalities in wildlife and domestic animals, with an increasing risk to humans [<span>1-4</span>]. Almost the entire world has been affected by H5N1; the virus has expanded to new regions such as the Americas and Antarctica for the first time in its evolutionary history [<span>3</span>]. However, no cases of H5N1 have been detected in Oceania to date [<span>5, 6</span>] (only one human case infected outside this continent has been reported [<span>7</span>]). Regions not affected by this virus are of epidemiological importance, as they provide insights about potential limiting factors for its spread (e.g., geographic barriers, environmental features, wild species traits and movement). Moreover, in those areas, there is still time to prepare efficient preventive and mitigation actions to reduce the impact of this pathogen, if we can identify potential pathways of virus arrival. Here, leveraging range maps of suitable host bird species, we suggest a potential pathway of H5N1 arrival to the Oceania region that could be important to consider under the current epidemiological behavior of this virus.</p><p>To assess possible pathways of H5N1 arrival to Oceania (specifically, Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania for this article), we performed a map of risk based on wild bird species already reported as infected by the virus anywhere in the world. These species could be considered suitable hosts of the virus. We integrated a list of H5N1-infected wild bird species reported in the World Animal Health Information System (WAHIS) database up to April 2024 [<span>3</span>] and Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research up to November 2024 (SCAR) [<span>8</span>], with species distributions primarily based on habitat maps (AOH) [<span>9</span>] and, when these were lacking, bird ranges provided by BirdLife International [<span>10</span>]. We removed records in which infected individuals were not identified at the species level and cases where individuals were kept in captivity. We obtained 345 unique wild bird species found infected by H5N1. To map the risk of H5N1 infection (i.e., areas where species reported as infected are distributed), we used the Additive Benefit Function (ABF) in Zonation v.5 [<span>11</span>].</p><p>Our risk map shows that Oceania presents a low risk compared with other regions, because it still does not host many species already reported as infected in the rest of the world (Figure 1A). However, more than 50 species that live in Oceania have already been infected in other regions (Table S1). Many of those species overlap their distributions in most of the coast of Australia and New Zealand, making this region of high risk (Figure 1B). Some key susceptible species reported infected in other regions (e.g., Antarctica and sub-Antarctic islands) such as Brown skuas (<i>Stercorarius antarcticus</i","PeriodicalId":13544,"journal":{"name":"Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses","volume":"18 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/irv.70055","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142835459","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}