National Institute of Virology, Pune-411001, India.
Abstracts of the papers presented at the International Conference of Indian Virological Society on “Emerging and Re-emerging viral Diseases of the Tropics and Subtropics” at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India, December 11–14, 2007.
During the year 2005, 100 clinical samples and during 2006, 119 clinical specimens from cases with acute respiratory infection that met clinical case definition were collected on a random basis at Kolkata, for antigenic characterization Specimens were processed for virus isolation in Madin Darby Canine Kidney cells,. All tissue culture fluid were screened by haemagglutination (HA) test. HA positive isolates were subjected to haemagglutination inhibition (HI) test using standard panel of reference antisera from WHO for subtyping. Five of these isolates were sent to WHO influenza center at CDC, Atlanta, USA for antigenic and genetic characterization. In the year 2005,clinical specimens yielded influenza virus type A (H3N2) which were similar to A/Panama/07/99 and one influenza TypeB similar to B/Hongkong/330/01. In the year 2006,26 virus strains were isolated of which, nine were A (H1), one was A (H3) and 16 Type B were similar to strain B/Malaysia/2506/04 of the B (Victoria lineage). Two of the 5 isolates sent to CDC were found to be related to A/Wisconsin/67/2005 (06–07 WHO H3-vaccine component) and remaining three isolates were found to be related to A/Solomon islands/03/2006 (07–08 WHO H1-vaccine component). In 2005 A (H3) and Type B virus strains were circulating. During the 2006 two known subtypes A (H1) and A (H3) were co-circulating in the community. Also Type B of the B/Victoria lineage was predominant in the same year.
