Background: Pigs (Sus scrofa) are the natural hosts of pseudorabies virus (PRV), also known as Aujeszky's disease. Infection in mammals, with the exception of humans, typically causes extreme itching, facial swelling, and excessive salivation, followed by death in non-suid species. The risk to susceptible mammals was assumed to decrease when PRV was eliminated from U.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn November 2014, a Eurasian strain H5N8 highly pathogenic avian influenza virus was detected in poultry in Canada. Introduced viruses were soon detected in the United States and within six months had spread to 21 states with more than 48 million poultry affected. In an effort to study potential mechanisms of spread of the Eurasian H5 virus, the United States Department of Agriculture coordinated several epidemiologic investigations at poultry farms.
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