Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regents Park, London, UK.
PLoS One. 2012;7(11):e40176. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0040176. Epub 2012 Nov 21.
Avian pox is a viral disease with a wide host range. In Great Britain, avian pox in birds of the Paridae family was first diagnosed in a great tit (Parus major) from south-east England in 2006. An increasing number of avian pox incidents in Paridae have been reported each year since, indicative of an emergent infection. Here, we utilise a database of opportunistic reports of garden bird mortality and morbidity to analyse spatial and temporal patterns of suspected avian pox throughout Great Britain, 2006-2010. Reports of affected Paridae (211 incidents) outnumbered reports in non-Paridae (91 incidents). The majority (90%) of Paridae incidents involved great tits. Paridae pox incidents were more likely to involve multiple individuals (77.3%) than were incidents in non-Paridae hosts (31.9%). Unlike the small wart-like lesions usually seen in non-Paridae with avian pox in Great Britain, lesions in Paridae were frequently large, often with an ulcerated surface and caseous core. Spatial analyses revealed strong clustering of suspected avian pox incidents involving Paridae hosts, but only weak, inconsistent clustering of incidents involving non-Paridae hosts. There was no spatial association between Paridae and non-Paridae incidents. We documented significant spatial spread of Paridae pox from an origin in south-east England; no spatial spread was evident for non-Paridae pox. For both host clades, there was an annual peak of reports in August/September. Sequencing of the avian poxvirus 4b core protein produced an identical viral sequence from each of 20 great tits tested from Great Britain. This sequence was identical to that from great tits from central Europe and Scandinavia. In contrast, sequence variation was evident amongst virus tested from 17 non-Paridae hosts of 5 species. Our findings show Paridae pox to be an emerging infectious disease in wild birds in Great Britain, apparently originating from viral incursion from central Europe or Scandinavia.
禽痘是一种具有广泛宿主范围的病毒性疾病。在英国，2006 年首次在英格兰东南部的一只大山雀（Parus major）中诊断出 Paridae 科鸟类的禽痘。此后，每年报告的禽痘病例数量不断增加，表明这是一种新出现的感染。在这里，我们利用一个机会性报告的花园鸟类死亡率和发病率数据库，分析 2006-2010 年期间整个英国疑似禽痘的时空模式。受影响的 Paridae（211 例）报告数量超过非 Paridae（91 例）。大山雀占 Paridae 痘病例的大多数（90%）。Paridae 痘病例中涉及多个个体的可能性（77.3%）高于非 Paridae 宿主的病例（31.9%）。与英国禽痘中非 Paridae 通常可见的小疣状病变不同，Paridae 的病变经常较大，常有溃疡性表面和干酪样核心。空间分析显示，涉及 Paridae 宿主的疑似禽痘病例存在强烈的聚类，但涉及非 Paridae 宿主的病例聚类较弱且不一致。Paridae 和非 Paridae 病例之间没有空间关联。我们记录了来自英国东南部起源的 Paridae 痘的显著空间传播；非 Paridae 痘没有明显的空间传播。对于这两个宿主分支，报告的数量都在 8 月/9 月达到年度高峰。对来自英国的 20 只大山雀进行的禽痘病毒 4b 核心蛋白测序产生了完全相同的病毒序列。该序列与从中欧和斯堪的纳维亚的大山雀中获得的序列相同。相比之下，从 5 种 17 种非 Paridae 宿主中测试的病毒序列存在明显的变异。我们的研究结果表明，Paridae 痘是英国野生鸟类中的一种新出现的传染病，显然源自从中欧或斯堪的纳维亚的病毒入侵。
