Ruolo dell'avifauna selvatica nell'ecologia dell'influenza: 14 anni di studio longitudinale in Italia

The role of wild animals in ecology of influenza is currently considered very important. Many researchers actually consider the natural reservoirs of the influenza virus to be wild birds, principally belonging to the Anseriformes Order. Many influenza viruses, showing all the possible hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) antigenic combinations, have been isolated from birds belonging to 88 Species, 22 Families and 12 Orders all belonging to the Aves Class, and in each of these species influenza viruses assume different epidemiological roles. When influenza epidemics occur in poultry, wild birds are immediately blamed and systematic attempts to isolate viruses from the wild birds are carried out to give an epidemiological proof. In fact, the ecology of influenza A viruses, is always related to the biological characteristics of the reservoirs and the eventual role of the non reservoir species. The ecology of influenza viruses is a very dynamic system in which certain structural constants (reservoir migrations) and other important environmental variables coexist. This system influences both the biology of reservoirs and that of epiphenomena, and in turn their interactions with the virus.