hankyoreh

South Chungcheong Province

By Kim Yang-joong, medical correspondent

Antibodies for avian influenza (AI) have been discovered in the body of a dog, prompting an investigation by the disease control authorities.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs announced on Mar. 14 that it had confirmed that H5N8 antibodies were found in one of the three dogs that were raised at the chicken farm in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, where the outbreak of AI occurred. The dogs had caught and eaten a chicken that was infected with AI.

This is the first time that AI antibodies have been detected in a dog in South Korea. Outside of the country, there was a 2004 report from Thailand of a dog contracting bird flu after eating the carcass of a duck infected with the disease.

On Feb. 17, after bird flu tests came back positive, all of the chickens that were being raised at the farm were culled.

The infected dog could have been able to beat the influenza virus by developing immunity to it. Since the dog has already formed antibodies, there is no chance of the disease being communicated to other dogs or people.

“The owner of the dog and other people in the area have shown no signs of being infected with the bird flu for more than a month already,” said an official at the disease control headquarters on condition of anonymity. “If they had been infected, symptoms would have appeared within a week. We are currently getting ready to confirm whether an infection occurred.”

This case represents an unusual example of the H5N8 AI - which generally only infects birds - crossing the species barrier to infect a dog.

In South Korea, during the outbreaks of H5N1 AI in 2003-2004 and 2006-2007, antibodies to the H5N1 influenza virus were detected in ten people who had been culling the birds, even though they showed no symptoms. Just as with the dog in question, these individuals were diagnosed with asymptomatic infection.

“The influenza virus is capable of crossing the species barrier from birds to pigs or to people. However, there has been no scientific demonstration of the virus being transmitted from birds to dogs, or from dogs to people,” said Oh Myeong-don, professor of infectious diseases at the Seoul National University College of Medicine. “We should not jump to the rash conclusion that the avian flu can be passed from dogs to people.”

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]