Serological Evidence of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (H5N1) in Invasive Wild Pigs in Western Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Influenza A virus (IAV) can infect a wide range of hosts, including wild and domestic pigs. Swine play an important role in influenza evolution and epidemiology due to their ability to get infected with both avian and human influenza viruses, potentially leading to reassorted virus variants. Interactions at the wild-domestic swine interface have been documented on multiple occasions, raising concern about pathogen transmission and the emergence of novel influenza strains. This study investigates the occurrence and subtypes of IAV infecting invasive wild pigs in Alberta, Canada. A total of 267 wild pigs were captured between 2021-2024. Exposure to IAV was initially detected by cELISA, with further confirmation of exposure to the H5Nx virus by hemagglutination inhibition (HI) and virus neutralization (VN) assays. Although no IAV genetic material was detected by qPCR, the seropositive samples by cELISA (4.17%; 5/120) coincided with the 2022-2024 highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAI) H5N1 epizootic in Alberta, which involved outbreaks in wild species and domestic birds. These findings, combined with the epidemiological context, suggest interspecies transmission of HPAI H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b to wild pigs. These results highlight the potential role of wild pigs as a new host in Canada and emphasize the need for continued surveillance of IAV in wild pig populations to assess the risk of spillover events at the wildlife, livestock, and human interfaces.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".