African Swine Fever

At the time of writing this chapter, a global pandemic of African swine fever (ASF) is ongoing with the virus having moved from Eastern Europe, Asia, and into the Caribbean—leaving swine production in devastation along the way. Due to the global spread of African swine fever virus (ASFV), the persistence of the virus, and the increasing number of endemic countries, this disease poses an imminent threat of introduction into North America and other countries that are currently ASF free. Throughout the chapter, we reference Eurasian wild boar (Sus scrofa) which are charismatic megafauna that are native to Europe and Asia. Wild boar were introduced into numerous areas in the southeastern United States and California by early settlers and they subsequently augmented and hybridized with established feral domestic swine (Sus scrofa) to give rise to contemporary populations of feral swine, a highly invasive species that are present across much of the United States. Feral swine are referred to by various terms, including wild hogs, feral pigs, wild boar, wild swine, razorbacks, and other regional names in North America. African swine fever has never been introduced into the United States; as such, we do not discuss feral swine in specific within the chapter. However, experimental inoculations demonstrate that feral swine are acutely susceptible to ASFV and given its current rapid global movement we anticipate similar patterns of exposure, infection, and risk amongst these populations

Intercontinental Movement of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1) Clade 2.3.4.4 Virus to the United States, 2021

We detected Eurasian-origin highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N1) virus belonging to the Gs/GD lineage, clade 2.3.4.4b, in wild waterfowl in 2 Atlantic coastal states in the United States. Bird banding data showed widespread movement of waterfowl within the Atlantic Flyway and between neighboring flyways and northern breeding grounds

H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza clade 2.3.4.4b in wild and domestic birds: Introductions into the United States and reassortments, December 2021–April 2022

Highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (HPAIVs) of the A/goose/Guangdong/1/1996 lineage H5 clade 2.3.4.4b continue to have a devastating effect on domestic and wild birds. Full genome sequence analyses using 1369 H5N1 HPAIVs detected in the United States (U.S.) in wild birds, commercial poultry, and backyard flocks from December 2021 to April 2022, showed three phylogenetically distinct H5N1 virus introductions in the U.S. by wild birds. Unreassorted Eurasian genotypes A1 and A2 entered the Northeast Atlantic states, whereas a genetically distinct A3 genotype was detected in Alaska. The A1 genotype spread westward via wild bird migration and reassorted with North American wild bird avian influenza viruses. Reassortments of up to five internal genes generated a total of 21 distinct clusters; of these, six genotypes represented 92% of the HPAIVs examined. By phylodynamic analyses, most detections in domestic birds were shown to be point-source transmissions from wild birds, with limited farm-to-farm spread

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1) Virus Outbreak in New England Seals, United States

We report the spillover of highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N1) into marine mammals in the northeastern United States, coincident with H5N1 in sympatric wild birds. Our data indicate monitoring both wild coastal birds and marine mammals will be critical to determine pandemic potential of influenza A viruses

Accelerated evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in free-ranging white-tailed deer

The zoonotic origin of the COVID-19 pandemic virus highlights the need to fill the vast gaps in our knowledge of SARS-CoV-2 ecology and evolution in non-human hosts. Here, we detected that SARS-CoV-2 was introduced from humans into white-tailed deer more than 30 times in Ohio, USA during November 2021-March 2022. Subsequently, deer-to-deer transmission persisted for 2–8 months, disseminating across hundreds of kilometers. Newly developed Bayesian phylogenetic methods quantified how SARS-CoV-2 evolution is not only three-times faster in white-tailed deer compared to the rate observed in humans but also driven by different mutational biases and selection pressures. The long-term effect of this accelerated evolutionary rate remains to be seen as no critical phenotypic changes were observed in our animal models using white-tailed deer origin viruses. Still, SARS-CoV-2 has transmitted in white-tailed deer populations for a relatively short duration, and the risk of future changes may have serious consequences for humans and livestock

A Novel Zoonotic Disease Outbreak Course to improve Surveillance and Response for the USDA

This presentation highlights the value of ongoing training to professional staff in zoonotic disease. This training program was designed to improve surveillance capability within the USDA-Veterinary Service division, and to improve knowledge, skills and comfort with an outbreak investigation

WHISPers, the USGS-NWHC Wildlife Health Information Sharing Partnership Event Reporting System

This session will improve awareness and utility of Wildlife Morbidity and Mortality event reporting

Evaluation of Syndromic Surveillance Data Streams in Animal Health

ObjectiveTo implement a systematic and uniform approach to evaluatingdata sources for syndromic surveillance within the United StatesDepartment of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant HealthInspection Services (APHIS) Veterinary Services (VS) group.IntroductionUSDA-APHIS-VS utilizes several continuous data streams toincrease our knowledge of animal health and provide situationalawareness of emerging animal health issues. In addition, USDA-APHIS-VS often conducts pilot projects to see if regular data accessand analysis are feasible, and if so, if the information generated isuseful. Syndromic surveillance was developed for three goals: asyndromic monitoring system to identify new diseases, as an emergingdisease early warning system, and to provide situational awarenessof animal health status. Current efforts focus on monitoring diversedata, such as laboratory accessions or poison center calls, groupedinto syndromic or other health indicator categories, and are notintended to identify specific pre-determined diseases or pathogens.It is essential to regularly evaluate and re-evaluate the effectiveness ofour surveillance program. However, there are difficulties when usingtraditional surveillance evaluation methods, since the objectives andoutcomes of monitoring novel data streams from pilot projects arenot easily measurable. An additional challenge in the evaluation ofthese data streams is the identification of a method that can adapt tovarious context and inputs to make objective decisions. Until recently,assessment efforts have looked at the feasibility of regular analysisand reporting, but not at the utility of the information generated, northe plausibility and sustainability of longer term or expanded efforts.MethodsMethods for surveillance evaluation, syndromic surveillanceevaluation, and specifically for animal health syndromic surveillanceevaluation were researched via a literature review, exploration ofmethods used in-house on traditional surveillance systems, andthrough development over time of criteria that were seen as key tothe development of functioning, sustainable systems focusing onanimal health syndromic surveillance. Several methods were adaptedto create an approach that could organize information in a logicalmanner, clarify objectives, and make qualitative value assessmentsin situations where the quantitative aspects of costs and benefits werenot always straight forward. More than 25 articles were reviewed todetermine the best method of evaluation.ResultsThe RISKSUR Evaluation Support Tool (EVA) provided themajority of the methodology for the evaluations of our data sources.The EVA tool allows for an integrated approach for evaluation, andflexible methods to measure effectiveness and benefits of various datastreams. The most useful and common factors found to evaluate pilotdata sources of interest were how well the information generated bythe data streams could provide early detection of animal health events,and how well and how often situational awareness information onanimal health was generated. The EVA tool also helps identify andorganize criteria that are used to assess the objectives, and assignvalue.ConclusionsThe regular evaluation of syndromic surveillance data streamsin animal health is necessary to make best use of resources andmaximize benefits of data stream use. It is also useful to conductregular interim assessments on data streams in pilot phase to becertain key information for a final evaluation will be generated duringthe project. The RISKSUR EVA tool was found to be very flexibleand useful for allowing estimates of value to be made, even whenevaluating systems that do not have very specific, quantitativelymeasurable objectives. This tool provides flexibility in the selectionof attributes for evaluation, making it particularly useful whenexamining pilot project data streams. In combination with additionalreview methodologies from the literature review, a systematic anduniform approach to data stream evaluation was identified for futureuse

Pathogenicity in Chickens and Turkeys of a 2021 United States H5N1 Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Clade 2.3.4.4b Wild Bird Virus Compared to Two Previous H5N8 Clade 2.3.4.4 Viruses

Highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (HPAIVs) of subtype H5 of the Gs/GD/96 lineage remain a major threat to poultry due to endemicity in wild birds. H5N1 HPAIVs from this lineage were detected in 2021 in the United States (US) and since then have infected many wild and domestic birds. We evaluated the pathobiology of an early US H5N1 HPAIV (clade 2.3.4.4b, 2021) and two H5N8 HPAIVs from previous outbreaks in the US (clade 2.3.4.4c, 2014) and Europe (clade 2.3.4.4b, 2016) in chickens and turkeys. Differences in clinical signs, mean death times (MDTs), and virus transmissibility were found between chickens and turkeys. The mean bird infective dose (BID50) of the 2021 H5N1 virus was approximately 2.6 log10 50% embryo infective dose (EID50) in chickens and 2.2 log10 EID50 in turkeys, and the virus transmitted to contact-exposed turkeys but not chickens. The BID50 for the 2016 H5N8 virus was also slightly different in chickens and turkeys (4.2 and 4.7 log10 EID50, respectively); however, the BID50 for the 2014 H5N8 virus was higher for chickens than turkeys (3.9 and ~0.9 log10 EID50, respectively). With all viruses, turkeys took longer to die (MDTs of 2.6–8.2 days for turkeys and 1–4 days for chickens), which increased the virus shedding period and facilitated transmission to contacts