Transatlantic spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 by wild birds from Europe to North America in 2021
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Author(s): Caliendo. V., Lewis, N.S., Pohlmann, A., Baillie, S.R., Banyard, A.C., Beer, M., Brown, I.H., Fouchier, R.A.M., Hansen, R.D.E., Lameris, T.K., Lang, A.S., Laurendaeu, S., Lung, O., Robertson, G., van der Jeugd, H., Alkie, T.N., Thorup, K., van Toor, M.L., Waldenstrom, J., Yason, C., Kuiken, T. & Berhane, Y.
Published: July 2022
Journal: Scientific Reports Volume: 12
Article No.: 11729
Digital Identifier No. (DOI): /10.1038/s41598-022-13447-z
Abstract
The discovery of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI H5) in domestic birds at an exhibition farm on the island of Newfoundland, on Canada’s Atlantic coast, in December 2021 was the first report of HPAI H5 in the Americas since June 2015. Genetic analysis linked the virus from the farm, and a wild gull found elsehwere, to HPAI viruses circulating in Europe in spring 2021, suggesting that the virus had been carried across the Atlantic.
The study reported in this paper set out to investigate whether the HPAI cases in Newfoundland were linked to the recent (2020/2021) or currently ongoing (2021/2022) HPAI outbreaks in Europe, and to indicate the most likely scenario by which the virus crossed the Atlantic with migratory birds.
Phylogenetic analyses - which reveal the evolutionary relationships among species by comparing their genetic characteristics - enabled the researchers to explore the likely origins of the virus found in Canada. The virus from the Great Black-backed Gull was highly similar to that from birds at the exhibition farm, and both could be linked to European viruses circulating in early 2021, indicating a European origin. The researchers then turned to ring-recovery data from the EURING Migration Mapping Tool, which was developed by a partnership including BTO. These data suggested that the most likely route of transmission was either via the spring migration of bird species moving to Icelandic, Greenlandic or Canadian High Arctic breeding grounds from Europe, or migration directly across the Atlantic from Europe to North America.
So why did the spread of HPAI across the Atlantic occur in the 2021/22 winter, but not before? There were unusually high rates of infection in European wild bird populations in late winter and spring 2021, including a higher proportion of Barnacle and Greylag Geese affected by HPAI in Europe from October 2020 (both species which migrate to Icelandic, Greenlandic or Canadian High Arctic breeding grounds in Spring). The study suggests that these two factors may explain why spread to Newfoundland happened during the 2021/2022 winter, and not in the previous winters.
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