Arbovirus Neutralizing Substances in Avian Plasmas

Abstract

Summary Plasmas obtained by cardiac puncture from small birds (Dusky Thrush, Blue Magpie, Tree Sparrow and Grey Starling) collected by shooting in Japan during 1956–58 yielded higher prevalences (.11 to .50) of neutralising substances to Japanese encephalitis virus than did plasmas obtained by jugular venipuncture (0 to .08) from birds of the same species collected concurrently by netting from the same geographic region. Neutralising substances to Japanese, St. Louis and western encephalitis viruses appeared after shooting in plasmas of 31 of 501 (.06) individual small Japanese and North American birds which were bled by jugular venipuncture before shooting and by cardiac puncture after shooting under simulated field conditions. These neutralizing substances were demonstrable by tests either in mice or chicken embryonic cell cultures.