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Do you think that air spread could have an important role in the diffusion of the avian influenza virus?
AI virus is a respiratory virus, so for this reason, of course, air plays an important role on the diffusion of the virus. This is more relevant when you have a big number of animals in a limited space (barn, farm and region too). It means that the direct, or in any case, strict contact between infected and healty birds is relevant. But the recent (2021-2022 epidemic) events showed as that the forced air ventilation system, very common now in poultry farms (in Italy basically in broiler and laying hens farms) means the passive spread on the area around the infected farm of a very huge quantity of virus and so if there are many farms one close to the other this could be the possible origin of the infection. It happened during the 2021-2022 epidemic that this passive spread of AI virus involved farms that were around 1 km far from an outbreak.
And can dust or insects such as flies be relevant sources of infection between farms?
What biosecurity measures can we implement to reduce aerogenic risk, apart from building farms as far away from each other as possible, windbreaks?
Dear Altor,
about dust if you have an air forced ventilation system it means that air, dust and virus go out from the house and if quite close (less than 1 km) you have another poultry farm this is a rysk. About inscets I don’t have data about their specific role, but in general I know that they could reparesent a way for the transmission of the virus.
Going to biosecurity measures to avoid the spread of AI virus (but in general of any pathogen) from the house through the ventilation system in Italy we are discussing about some measures to be adopetd. I consider that the presence of closed rooms where air goes out form the house could be effective to limit the spread and reduce this rysk.
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